Photos courtesy of Nathan Lodermeier
NORTHFIELD, Minn. – The Gustavus men’s and women’s cross country teams competed in the MIAC Championships on Saturday and each finished in sixth place.
The Gustie women stayed true to their pack mentality as their top five runners all finished from 21st to 38th. Tierney Winter (Jr., Waterville, Minn.) led the way finishing in 21st while Gabriela Passmore (Jr., Mapleton, Minn.), Lotus Schifsky (Sr., Prescott, Wis.), Iliana Ramon (Fy., Fairmont, Minn.), and Kourtney Kulseth (So., New Richland, Minn.) all finished in the top 38.
On the women’s results, coach Brenden Huber said, “We ended up being four points out of fourth today so we were right there. Our girls went out and competed hard and stuck together and it was a lot of fun to see. We just needed our runners to slide up a few more spots and we would have been right where we wanted to be in the top five. We took our shot today and it didn’t pan out our way, but the girls competed really hard and loved it.”
On the men’s side, Andrew Stumbo (So., Boone, Iowa) earned all-conference honors for the second year in a row as he finished in 15th place. Ben Wicklund (Fy., Marine on St. Croix, Minn.), Jack Degonda (Fy., Marine on St. Croix, Minn.), and Garet Grant (Fy., Winona, Minn.) all finished inside the top 50 to help pace the Gusties. Noah Johnson (Fy., Stillwater, Minn.) rounded out the Gustavus top five as he finished in 52nd place.
“It was really competitive this year. Our guys stuck their nose in it and tried to compete, said coach Huber. “Our freshman were flying today so it was fun to see that we’ve got some good youth coming through our program. Today the effort was really awesome, we encouraged some people to stick their nose where it didn’t belong just to see if they could do it and we’re just really happy with how hard they competed today.”