It was deja vu as the same two cross country runners from the ISU Open on Sept. 9 finished at the top again at the Roy Griak Invitational on Saturday.

Lisa Koll placed 98th out of 287 competitors in the women’s 6K, clocking in at 22:56. Kiel Uhl was the top finisher for the men’s team, placing 15th out of 225 competitors in the 8K race with a time of 25:42.

Koll said she had two goals going into the Griak gold race: Finish in the top 100 and run under 23 minutes.

After barely meeting both, she was content.

“I did how I expected to do,” she said. “I wanted top-80, but I’m also not used to that many people.

“But if you look at the level of competition, I’m happy with how I did. No regrets.”

Koll was overwhelmed with the number of competitors.

“There were so many people there. I didn’t even know where my teammates were,” she said.

“It was a completely different atmosphere at the Griak [compared to the ISU Open]. It shows you there is so much more out there and makes you strive to get better.”

A change from a 5K race to a 6K race also made things more challenging she said.

“In the middle, I had to think, ‘I still have 2K left instead of just 1K.’ The change in the distance made things more confusing,” Koll said.

Women’s coach Dick Lee praised Koll for her performance.

“She ran a solid race,” he said.

“It was a good job for her first big race on a highly competitive field. She’ll keep racing better and better as the season goes on.”

Following Koll was Dawn Caffrey (23:53), Meredith McKean (23:54) and Jessi Wild (25:09).

Arizona State won the women’s race, followed by Minnesota and Baylor. Iowa State finished 28th out of 31 teams.

Despite finishing lower than he wanted to as a team, Lee said the meet will serve as a learning experience for the newcomers.

“The way the course is set up, you need to get up [toward the front] early,” he said. “You can get caught up in the back with 300 runners and I think we got caught in that situation.

“I thought we’d probably have people finish higher than we did. For the first 600 meters, with a little different rate, it would have improved our placings. [After 800 meters], there’s only 30 seconds from the leaders to the back. We got caught in the back and that cost us.”

Overall, Lee said he was pleased with the effort from his fairly young team.

“That’s the biggest field we’ll see all year and it was also a very competitive field with a number of ranked teams,” he said.

“It was the first 6K in college for our freshmen. Some came out thinking, ‘Yeah, we could have run faster.’ It’s a learning experience.”

The men, on the other hand, finished 16th out of 27 teams.

David Rotich finished 58th with a time of 25:23, followed by Jory Zunich (25:21), John Ricardi (25:55) and Jon Reis (26:11).

Uhl said he was very pleased with how he did, but did say he and the team could have done better.

“I went out really cautious,” he said. “If I’d pushed a little harder, I could have done better. But, I’m still learning.

Everybody, including myself, could have done a little better, but we’re on the right track.”