INDIANAPOLIS – The regular season continued for a handful of teams over the weekend as new Great Midwest Athletic Conference Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Athletes of the Week awards were announced Tuesday morning.
 
The Great Midwest had some shuffled movement in the first USTFCCCA National Cross Country Coach Poll of the season.
 
Hillsdale and Walsh were ranked back to back at No. 10 and 11 in the women’s poll while Walsh and Malone represented the league at No. 19 and 22 in the men’s poll.
 
Regionally, the women featured three teams in the top 10 of the Midwest with Hillsdale at No. 2, Walsh at No. 3 and Cedarville slotted in at No. 8.
 
In the Midwest Region rankings for the men, Walsh leads all Great Midwest programs at No. 4, Malone follows at No. 5, Cedarville is No. 6 and Hillsdale is settled at No. 8.
 
The new USTFCCCA Regional and National Polls for Week 2 will be announced today and tomorrow.
 
Men’s Athlete of the Week
Caleb Pell
Alderson Broaddus
Senior
Looneyville, WV (Roane County HS)
 
Around the league, Pell clocked the seventh best time this season in the 8K distance with a sixth-place finish at the Lock Haven Invitational on Saturday.
 
He paced the Battlers in a field of 222 total runners with a time of 25:58.90 and averaged 5:13.60 per mile.
 
Pell had also finished first at the Penn State Behrend Invitational the weekend prior with a time that also makes the top-25 8K list among all conference runners this year.
 
This is Pell’s second career weekly conference honor in the sport of men’s cross country.
 
Women’s Athlete of the Week
Kierra Hodge
Alderson Broaddus
Freshman
Philippi, WV (Philip Barbour HS)
 
The second Battler to earn conference weekly honors was the first-year runner Hodge, who turned in her own quality performance at the Lock Haven Invitational.
 
The women’s field was just as deep in the 6K event as Hodge finished in the top 18 percent out of over 200 individuals.
 
She finished 40th with a time of 23:20.20 which is the fourth-best 6K time among all conference runners this fall.
 
Hodge is among a handful of talented freshmen runners in the conference this year along with the likes of MacKenna Curtis-Collins (Malone), Gabrielle Lawrence (Findlay), Sophia Maeda (Hillsdale) and Claire McNally (Hillsdale), to name a few.