Huskies Travel to Twin Cities for Roy Griak Invitational
HOUGHTON, Mich. – The Michigan Tech cross country squads return to competition this week, heading to the Twin Cities for the historic Roy Griak Invitational on Friday, hosted by the University of Minnesota at Les Bolstad Golf Course in St. Paul.
The men compete at 12:30 p.m., covering 8,000m in the Jo Rider Men's Maroon Race (Division II & III), with the women following at 1:15 p.m., pacing 6,000m in the Suzy Wilson Women's Maroon Race (Division II & III).
Of note, the men of Michigan Tech made history by winning the Jo Rider men's Maroon race a season ago.
Live results of the races can be found here.
Last Time Out
The Huskies returned to Houghton with two pieces of hardware from the Phoenix Open hosted by the University of Green Bay.
The No. 17 nationally-ranked men of Michigan Tech won the team race while Tucker Ringhand posted his second-straight individual victory in a near personal-best time of 25:02.5. The women's team had a runner-up finish to a highly ranked Winona State team.
Ringhand and Hannah Loughlin led the Huskies and earned GLIAC Athlete's of the Week for their efforts.
The top seven for the men finished within 45 seconds of Ringhand's winning time, with Nick McKenzie remaining the second runner for Tech and seventh overall. Stephen Loparo (25:30.9), Naseem Dhaouadi (25:32.1) and Sam Marshall (25:40.4) placed within the top 13 to conclude the scoring.
Hannah Loughlin highlighted the women's race with a big personal-best time of 22:01.8, placing third overall.
Loughlin has progressed through the first two meets of the season and is ready to compete with the best in the first meet of the season that can play into at-large qualifiers for the NCAA Championships.
"I'm excited to have more people to push me in a larger race," Hannah Loughlin said. "Roy Griak is a course that I think plays to my strengths individually with the rolling hills and I'm excited to see what the team can do."
Loughlin is rather familiar with the area, growing up in Mahtomedi, Minnesota, just 20 minutes away from the University of Minnesota.
Freshman Sophia Rhein was the second finisher for Michigan Tech for the second consecutive race, placing 11th in 22:39.9.
Mady VanWieren ran a near personal-best to be the third Husky across the finish line in 11th (23:10.0). Cedar Gordon also had a massive personal-best of thirty seconds, running 23:27.2.
Freshman Amyla Eberhart rounded out the scorers, finishing just outside of the top 20 with her 21st place, knocking a minute off her 6k time, running 23:33.8.