GRAND RAPIDS, MI – The Bay College Cross Country Teams ran their first conference meet of the season. Both teams showed encouraging results as the women were ninth out of 13 teams. The Men's Team did not post a team score.
Hattie Cota (FR, Munising, MI) cut well over a minute off of her time from the opening race two weeks prior. She finished in 46th place with a time of 22:25.6. Veronica Spreitzer (FR, Escanaba, MI) was the second Norse runner to score for the team, finishing the race in 25:32.2. Aleyna Wetthuhn (FR, Gladstone, MI) cut about 30 seconds off her time from earlier in the season, coming in at 25:39.2. Leah Gould (FR, Engadine, MI) got her first taste of collegiate competition, and crossed the line with a time of 25:53.7. Devyn Lusardi (FR, Stephenson, MI) also showed improvement, with her time of 27:26.4 being 27 seconds faster then her time in Green Bay.
Northwood (MI) took the overall victory with 36 points and three runners in the top ten. Aquinas was second with 61 points and Lawrence Tech totaled 97 points for third place. The Norse finished with 268 points, placing them ahead of four of the 13 teams in the field.
It was the first 8K race for the men this season and they were paced by Brent Lagina (FR, Norway, MI). He crossed the line with a time of 35:21.5. Dustin Brewster (FR, Manistique, MI) was the next Norse across the line with a time of 36:41.7. Austin Watchorn (SO, Escanaba, MI) logged a time of 41:22.2, while Matt LeClaire (FR, Gladstone, MI) rounded it out wth a time of 42:43.2.
"Overall, the athletes performed well today," said Head Coach Scott Carhoun after the event. "The training up to this point has been fairly rudimentary, so Im excited to see where we are at a month from now. Today, we only had four running on the men's team, so I feel for them since they did not have enough for a team score."
Once again, the Norse will take a week off between competition and compete in another conference meet on Friday, September 29. That one will be at St. Clair County Community College.