In his 2018 season debut, Charger junior men's cross country runner Joseph Humes wasted little time in making an impact.
Humes took first place at the Jeff Drenth Memorial Invitational, held at Central Michigan University Friday morning. He not only beat runners from large participating Division I programs like the host Chippewas and Michigan State University, but he set a new Great Midwest Athletic Conference record in the process.
His winning time of 15:13.44 was the best 5K time in conference history, and allowed him to cross the finish line first overall out of 44 individual competitors.
As a team, Hillsdale finished in third place with a score of 67. CMU finished first with 25 points, followed by 40 from Michigan State. Central Michigan had the numbers two, three, four and five runners in the race, though all of them trailed Humes.
Following Humes were sophomores Mark Miller and Jack Shelley, placing 18th and 22nd with times of 16:05.03 and 16:22.09.
Sophomore Eric Poth made his debut after an injury that kept him off the course for the 2017 season. He came in fourth for Hillsdale and 27th overall with a time of 16:41.50.
Hillsdale next takes the course on September 14, when it heads to East Lansing to run at the Spartan Invitational.
Words: Calli Townsend
Photo: Sarah Benson