The Irish traveled down to St. Charles, MO for a weekend of great weather and ok racing. The Irish ran out of luck, as one team member, Laura, suffered a bad crash during the road race. There were some highlights and everyone was glad to race in shorts and short sleeves for the first time this season.
Notre Dame had two team time trials. The Men’s C TTT, which included John Cerney, Anthony Hall, and Charles Hall came in third. The Men’s A TTT, consisting of Cole Carnesecca, David McKenna and James Pratt finished in last, but were taking it easy and just wanted to get a few points knowing they would not place well with only 3 racers and only one A racer.
In the Men’s D 22 mile road race Cole and John C finished 30th and 31st. John stopped to help Laura (see below) after her crash. Many riders dropped out of the race, so the Irish were proud to finish the very difficult course.
In the Men’s C road race, a break of 3 formed quickly on the first hill, and Charles was in a chase group of 7. They were unable to catch the break, but Charles finished the race in 6th place after long 44 miles.
In the women’s B/C, Laura McMillion was the a group of 3 riders chasing a one woman breakaway, but she lost focus for a second because of the heat and ended up crashing and suffering a sprained shoulder and had to have 7 stitches in her forehead. Laura was in good spirits after the crash and luckily her parents were there to help take care of her.
In the Men’s 88 mile A race, James Pratt stayed with the pack for the entire first lap. Even though he got dropped after that, James was determined to finish. James ended up finishing all 88 miles and came in 25th place!
In the women’s A race, the field got separated on the second hill of the first lap. Sarah was in the third group of riders but managed to catch up to and eventually drop some of the riders in front of her. On the last lap, Sarah was with two other riders but her derailleur was not working properly and her chain got jammed on the last major hill. Sarah stopped to put the chain back on, and rode the final (flat) 10 miles of the race using only one gear. Sarah came in 8th place, her best A finish to date.
David McKenna (Men’s B) and Anthony Hall (Men’s C) were both unable to finish the road race.
On Sunday, Charles Hall had the best finish of the day in the men’s C race with 11th place. Charles was in the lead group, but Wisconsin had 6 riders and were able to control the field.
David McKenna worked hard to pick up primes in the Men’s B race, and finished the race in 16th place.
All other ND riders were so worn out from the road races that they were pulled prior to the end of their crits but were still scored. In the Men’s D race, Cole was placed 28th and John 20th. In Men’s A, James was placed 42nd, and in Women’s A Sarah was placed 15th.
Please pray for a speedy recovery for Laura McMillion. As of Thursday, she is feeling much better and excited to be possibly able to race at Purdue this coming weekend!
Heading into the final weekend of regular season racing, Notre Dame is ranked #3 in the conference (#1 among D2 teams!). Tony is ranked #1 in the D2 Omnium and James Pratt is #2. Sarah is ranked #3 in the Women’s A D2 Omnium. David is #3 in Men’s B D2 and Laura McMillion is #1 in Women’s B D2.
GO IRISH