ETTRICK, Wis. – The Gustavus men’s cross country team took sixth place out of 21 teams Saturday at the UW-La Crosse Jim Drews Invitational. Host UW-La Crosse won the event, St. Olaf took second, and Iowa Central Community College placed third.
“We challenged a few guy to get out front today and get position and trust themselves to hold on,” said Head Coach Brenden Huber. “We had some mixed results, the good news is that overall we ran well. The best news for us is that there is still a lot of room to grow and we took it as a positive today to place where we did and know there is still room for improvement heading into the MIAC Championships. This is one of the deepest men’s performances we’ve seen, having 10 men break 27 minutes is a huge step forward for the program. I’m very excited to see how we finish the last month of the season.”
Andrew Stumbo (Jr., Boone, Iowa) and Garet Grant (So., Winona) finished 14th and 15th, respectively, with times of 25:30.3 and 25:31.0. Ben Wicklund (So., Marine on St. Croix) took 62nd in 26:19.3, Casey Olson (Jr., Harmony) finished 66th in 26:23.2, and Noah Johnson (So., Stillwater) placed 74th in 26.29.4
Awet Yohannes of Iowa Central won the race in 24:41.2.
The Gusties next compete Nov. 2 at the MIAC Championships.