Facing two teams ranked in the top 20 nationally, the ISU men’s cross country team placed third at the Jim Drews Invitational on Saturday behind top-ranked Wisconsin and 17th-ranked Minnesota.

The men were led by Dan Taylor in ninth place (24:57.2), Alfred Singoei in 16th place (25:29.1) and Ryan French in 18th place (25:32.1).

Grant Shadden, winner of the Midwest Collegiate Open, did not finish the race because of leg muscle problems.

Going into the meet, Taylor said that Minnesota’s high ranking didn’t faze the team.

“[Minnesota has] some very talented runners, but we think we’re just as good as Minnesota,” he said.

“We didn’t have Grant, and that hurt us a little bit. We knew we were probably the third-best team, but with Grant, it would have been a totally different story.”

Men’s head coach Corey Ihmels agreed.

“We ran where we were picked to run,” he said. “I thought we’d be closer to Minnesota, but we had a tough week of training. We’ll be a lot better team in two weeks.”

Taylor said that Minnesota is the top team in Iowa State’s region, and in order to get to nationals, the Cyclones need to beat the Gophers at the regional meet, which is two weeks after the Big 12 Conference meet.

Ihmels said he was also impressed with the 8K finishes of French, Singoei and Craig Cartier (25:37.8).

“Those were three guys that did solid for us,” Ihmels said. “We’ve got to shore up some things, and we have to get everybody on all cylinders at the same time.”

Taylor said the Drew Invitational was a good transition from prior meets to the Big 12 Championships.

“We didn’t want to go from D-II and D-III schools to all D-I schools,” he said. “It kind of showed [us] where we stand.”

The women’s team placed fifth at the Tori Neubauer Invitational, which followed the men’s race, behind Lindsey Nye’s 12th-place finish in the 6K.

Nye (23:06.4) was followed by Meredith McKean (23:19.1) in 20th and Jenny Mockler (23:25.3) in 26th.

This meet was the first for McKean in nearly a month because she was struggling with anemia.

McKean said she had never had a problem with this before but found running more difficult than it should have been.

“After the second meet, I compared my results from last year [and then decided] to get it checked out,” she said.

“The doctors didn’t want me to race until I got my iron levels back up. I had to drop back my mileage also.”

McKean said it felt great to run again and not have to worry about her body aching.

Nye has finished near the front for the ISU women in most of this year’s meets. But, despite being a senior, she looks at each meet as just another opportunity to run.

“I’ve been thankful to have four years to run, but I don’t put that extra pressure on myself,” she said.

Nye said that she has confidence from the training she has put in and is seeing her hard work pay off.

The next meet for Iowa State is the Big 12 Championships in Topeka, Kan., on Oct. 30.