Cross Country Teams Finish Top 10 at Eau Claire
COLFAX, Wis. — The Michigan Tech cross country teams raced at the BluGold Invitational hosted by UW-Eau Claire today. The men's team placed sixth of 25 teams while the women were ninth of 25 entrants. The fields for both races had more than 385 runners each.
"It was a good day for both teams," said coach Joe Haggenmiller. "I thought we ran really smart races which resulted in several personal records for our athletes."
Deedra Irwin had the best individual result with a third-place showing in the women's six-kilometer race. She covered the distance at Whitetail Golf Course in 22:18.9. Elise Dombkowski ran a strong race to finish 49th in a time of 23:45.8. The next three Huskies across the line were bunched together in a 10-second span. They were Emily Vigil (73rd, 24:19.8), Liz Bloch (78th, 24:23.3) and Amber Peabody (84th, 24:29.3).
Sean Pengelly paced the Tech men with a fifth-place finish. He flew around the eight-kilometer course in a time of 24:53.7, smashing his PR by 30 seconds. Jason Saliga and Daniel Kulas were next across for the Huskies in 40th and 46th places respectively. Saliga's time was 26:22.3, while Kulas set a new PR by 20 seconds at 26:27.2. Calvin Nitz gutted out a 26:42.5 time despite having issues in the final kilometer. Jani Lane rounded out the Huskies' top five with a 26:56.4 for 68th place.
Michigan Tech will race again next weekend (Oct. 11) when it travels to UW-Parkside for the Lucian Rosa Invitational.