After a long season of tough competition, the Eau Claire men’s cross country team ended its season on Saturday with an 11th place finish at the Midwest Regional Meet in Rock Island, Ill.

The Blugolds went into the season with a goal of qualifying for the national meet, and the regional meet was their opportunity to try to reach that goal.

Eau Claire entered the meet ranked 22nd in the country. The top three teams in the country were participating in the regional meet – UW-La Crosse, UW-Oshkosh and North Central College (Ill.).

Those teams took the top three spots at the meet, with UW-Stevens Point and UW-Platteville rounding out the top five.

The top five teams qualified for the national meet and the Blugolds were disappointed not to crack that threshold, especially since they had beaten Platteville in the WIAC meet two weeks earlier.

“I don’t think any of us feel we had our best race,” coach Scott Steuernagel said.

Sophomore Matt Goertz also said that the team didn’t live up to its expectations.

“It’s always a disappointment when you don’t qualify for nationals,” he said. “We all needed to have our best race of the year to qualify, and we didn’t.”

One Blugold who did do well in the meet was senior James Larson, who finished 10th overall in the 5,000-meter run and qualified for the national meet. His time of 25 minute s 8 seconds was a season best for him.

This is the second year in a row that Larson has qualified for the national meet and Steuernagel thinks he has a chance to do well.

“He has experience in big meets,” Steuernagel said. “He has a good chance to be an All-American.”

Steuernagel said he thinks the team has a good chance to improve next year, since Larson was the only senior on the regional team.

“We have something to work hard for,” he said. “It will be like night and day.”