Ettrick, Wis. – The Gustavus Adolphus women’s cross country team scored 213 points to take seventh place out of 22 teams at the Tori Neubauer Invitational on Saturday at the Ettrick Golf Club. The Gusties placed two runners inside the top-20 to help the team improve upon its 10th place finish from last season’s result in Ettrick.
“The team ran well again today,” said Coach Dale Bahr. “Everyone on our team has had good races at some point this season, but we haven’t been able to put that together. However, I think today was the first time this season we’ve seen the ladies put their best races together for the most part. We’ve known it was there, but we’ve just been working on that team aspect and putting it all together at the same time. Spirits are high…these ladies certainly want to do well and they ran well in their packs today, so some great progress was made and we saw a lot of positive things that happened today.”
As she has done for a majority of the year, Marit Sonnesyn (Sr., Plymouth, Minn.) paced the Gusties on the day. Sonnesyn finished the 6k race in 22:23, good for a ninth place finish. Lauren Shurson (Sr., Chanhassen, Minn.) was second for the Gusties, crossing the finish line in 22:48 and a 17th place finish. First-year Lotus Schifsky (Prescott, Wis.) was next with a 23:37 and 54th place finish, and Sadie Novak-Klug (So., Waseca, Minn.) 11 seconds later (23:48) in 62nd place. Stephanie Welke (So., Tomahawk, Wis.) rounded out the Gustie top-5 after finishing in 24:01, good for 71st place overall.
“Today exposed the team to a number of things that were good for them to see right before the conference meet,” said Bahr. “Most importantly, I think we showed ourselves that we’re a good team and one to be reckoned with. On the other hand, I think our ladies saw the continued importance of us having to reduce our gaps and reduce the spread between our No. 2 runner and our No. 7…that’s going to be the key factor when we get to a meet the size of conference. If we can close some of those, we’ll certainly be able to achieve our goals as a top-3 conference team.”
Gustavus will return to the course on Saturday, Oct. 31 for the MIAC Championships which will be held at Como Park in St. Paul, Minn.