In his “welcome back party” to cross country racing, Grant Shadden crossed the finish line victorious Saturday at the Midwest Collegiate Open in Kenosha, Wis.

The fifth-year senior won the 8-K race, which had 369 competitors and 29 complete teams, with a time of 24:53. Iowa State won the team title, scoring five of the top 15.

Shadden redshirted last season due to injuries after transferring from Bowling Green State in 2002.

“When we started, I got a little excited and just took off,” he said. “For the first mile, a third of it was uphill, and I went through it in 4:39. I had almost a 100-meter lead at the beginning. I knew from that point on that the race would get painful. But I enjoyed it.”

Going into the race, Shadden planned on taking it easy during the early portions of the race.

“Tactically, I didn’t run an intelligent race,” Shadden said. “Going in, I planned on settling in [with the other runners] and then making my move. That went out the window right away. I didn’t realize I had [taken off the way I did]. In that situation, you have to hold on and hope no one catches you. I prayed for strength that I would be able to hold on.”

Shadden said he plans to learn from the win.

“My training had gone extremely well [this summer],” Shadden said. “It was just good to get back to racing. It’s a different animal. Coach [Corey Ihmels] said my learning curve would be big from this meet to the next. I definitely needed this experience.”

Ihmels said he was very pleased with Shadden’s race.

“We’re happy to have Grant back,” Ihmels said. “He did a really good job. I was really excited with his start. I know he was excited to run and get out and test the waters. He went out hard.”

Dan Taylor finished third (25:12) and said that the race went really fast for him.

“It went by quickly, but I think that’s because I was thinking about running fast,” Taylor said. “That was the biggest thing for this team, go out and compete hardcore.”

Taylor said despite finishing two spots behind Shadden, he was only close to him at the start.

“Grant started out really fast,” Taylor said. “At about the mile mark, he had an eight-second lead on me. I got within a quarter of a mile and that was it. He was ahead the whole race.”

Other top 20 finishes included Joris De Vulder 10th (25:49), Alfred Singoei 15th (25:55) and Jon Reis 16th (25:56). Ihmels was especially impressed with De Vulder and Reis finishing in the top five.

“De Vulder is a new guy on the team. This was his first 8-K cross country race,” Ihmels said. “[Jon] improved his personal record by [as much as] two minutes. He ran a heck of a race.”

Taylor said that overall, this meet was a good momentum swing for this team.

“Oh wow,” Taylor said. “This is a huge confidence booster for this team. Most of the team ran really well. Jon Reis deserves a bunch of credit. So does Grant and Joris De Vulder. The rest of us did our job, but they went above and beyond [the rest of the team].”

Iowa State placed 67 points ahead of the second place team, North Central College.

The men have next weekend off and then host the ISU 6-K and 4-K race on Oct. 1.