Cross Country

Bradley Men Claim Fifth-Straight MVC Championship; Jake Hoffert wins Second Individual Title

The Bradley men's cross country team rewrote the record book on Saturday as the Braves matched a conference record by winning their fifth-straight Missouri Valley Conference Championship and senior Jake Hoffert became the first runner in school history to claim two individual MVC crowns.

MVC Men's Cross Country Final Results (PDF)



 
The Braves are the first team since Wichita State from 1971 to 1975 to win five-straight MVC Men's Championships, matching the conference record. On the women's side, Bradley registered its seventh-straight top-two finish at the meet, finishing as runner up on Saturday.
 
Overall, the Bradley men featured the top four finishers and five of the top seven to set a modern-day conference record with 17 points in the winning effort, easily defeating runner-up Drake with 74 points. The Braves just missed a perfect score with their 17 points the fewest since Drake scored 15 in a two-team race in 1947.
 
"Today was a special performance by our men and as dominant as we have ever been before," said 2019 Missouri Valley Conference Men's Coach of the Year, Darren Gauson. "I don't think we have had five come together and run what they are capable of this season but we did that today. We came out really well, set the tone early and it allowed everyone to relax. I also thought we did a good job of handling the conditions well. Today's performance was right up there with last year's regional in terms of execution and it puts us in a great position to be a top team at regionals again in two weeks"
 
Individually, Hoffert led the Braves with an 8K time of 24:46.1 – winning his second Valley crown by more than 15 seconds. Also victorious in 2017, Hoffert is the first two-time champion in program history as Rod Collins in 1965 is the only other Bradley individual champion. Hoffert also became the first Brave in school history to collect all-conference honors in all four of his seasons on campus.
 
Five Braves, overall, earned all-conference accolades on Saturday as senior Luke Hoffert placed second in 25:01.3, redshirt freshman Matthew Richtman was third in 25:05.6, senior Ben Potrykus was fourth in 25:05.6 and sophomore Jack Franklin was seventh in 25:16.8.
 
Richtman matched Jake Hoffert's record for the top finish by a Bradley freshman (Hoffert also placed third in 2016), while he becomes the second-straight Bradley runner and fourth in the last six years to earn MVC Freshman of the Year accolades (Michael Ward in 2014, Jake Hoffert in 2016 and Jack Franklin in 2018). Fellow rookie Drew Wenger placed 14th on Saturday and received honorable mention to the All-Valley team.
 
Franklin also received the MVC Elite 17 Award for owning the top GPA by an all-conference student-athlete on Saturday.

Men’s Team Scores
1. Bradley (17 points)
2. Drake (74 Points)
3. Northern Iowa (94 Points)
4. Loyola (98 Points)
5. Valparaiso (134 Points)
6. Illinois State (136 Points)
7. Southern Illinois (170 Points)
8. Indiana State (220 Points)
9. Evansville (279 Points)

Men’s All-Conference First Team 
Jake Hoffert, Bradley  (Athlete of the Year)
Luke Hoffert, Bradley
Matt Richtman, Bradley
Ben Potrykus, Bradley
Wal Khat, Northern Iowa
CJ May, Northern Iowa
Jack Franklin, Bradley
Alexander Bruno, Valparaiso
Kyle Brandt, Drake
Riley Demeulenaere, Loyola 

Men’s All-Conference Honorable Mention
Matt Blanco, Illinois State
Adam Fogg, Drake
Dominnic Paoletti, Valparaiso
Drew Wenger, Bradley
Maximilian Fridrich, Drake 

Athlete of the Year:  Jake Hoffert, Bradley
Freshman of the Year:  Matt Richtman, Bradley
Elite 17 Award Winner:  Jack Franklin, Bradley
Coach of the Year:  Darren Gauson, Bradley