University Place, Washington. — The Michigan Tech men’s cross-country team, ranked No. 18 nationally, posted a program-best finish and a national-best No. 10 finish at the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships at Chambers Creek Regional Park Friday morning. I was.
Colorado School of Mines won the team race with an impressive 43 points, Wingate finished runner-up in his second Cross Country Championship (177 points) and Colorado Christian finished on the podium (191 points).
The Michigan Tech men’s team finished in the top 10 with 327 points, seven points behind the eighth-placed Charleston team.
Head coach Christina Owen said: “I’m so excited about our players’ performance. “This is a historic result for our program and I totally gave them everything they had. We are very proud of our men.
“You could tell the body language of our team was all positive and excited about the race and the success,” said assistant head coach Robert Young. I thought that if we had a great race, we would be among the top 10 teams, so I am very proud of their performance.”
The race was highlighted by two national championships with senior Clayton Cyen (30:13.7) and sophomore Drew Collodge (30:21.8) finishing 16th and 28th respectively.
Saien, from Houghton, finished in 16th place, the best in Tech history.
“At the beginning of the season, I set myself the goal of achieving the best individual performance in school history. Today I am proud to have achieved that goal. It’s been a great experience, guys.The goals are now set for a successful track season.”
The duo remained among the top 30 throughout the race, completing the final 1k in times of 2:54.3 and 3:01.7 respectively.
Drew Collodge said, “It’s crazy to hit your long-term college goal of being All-American in your second year.” “We knew we had an opportunity going into the race, but nothing is guaranteed on the biggest stage in the country.
“This entire season has been an amazing experience being a frontrunner and factor in every race. I couldn’t be happier that my season achieved all of its goals: First Team All GLIAC, Regional Top 10, and most importantly All-American.”
Sophomore Sam Lange was one of the best third runners on the team on the field, just shy of earning All-America status with a 49th place finish of 30:45.4.
The Washington, Illinois native ran a smart race, taking 73 runners from the 2km mat to the 4-mile marker.
The Huskies’ fourth runner, Tucker Ringhand, climbed nine places from 4.6km to reach the finish line with a time of 31:43.8 to finish 139th on his national debut.
Junior Nick Mackenzie remained relatively in the same position throughout the race, improving on last year’s performance by moving up seven places in the final kilometer to finish in 149th (31:52.5).
Like most Huskies, Stephen Ropalo climbed up to 189th place in his first NCAA Cross Country Championship, running a 32:23.3. Also making his NCAA championship debut, Kyle Samrak ran most of the race at Rapallo, finishing 209th in 32:40.7.
The team averaged a time of 30:59.5 with a spread of 1:38.8.