Building off of a solid season-opening performance two weeks ago, the Hillsdale College men's cross country team took fourth overall at the Lucian Rosa Invite in Wisconsin this Saturday.
Junior Adam Wier again was the top finisher for the Chargers, in a time of 26:12 that was good for 10th overall. Also giving Hillsdale strong representation at the front of the pack was freshman Alex Mitchell, who finished 16th overall to cross the line as the team's second runner with a time of 26:37.
Dropping over a minute from his performance two weeks ago, sophomore Mark Sprague finished as the Charger's third runner, running 26:49. Crossing the line only 12 seconds after Mitchell, Sprague snatched 19th overall, adding to Hillsdale's showing at the front end of the race.
Continuing to give the Chargers big races in his first collegiate season, freshman Donnie McArdle placed 25th (27:06) overall and fourth for Hillsdale. Just three seconds behind him, freshman Ross Kuhn also ran well, placing 26th (27:09) overall and rounding out the scoring top five for the team.
Sophomore Sean Hoeft finished sixth for the chargers, placing 32nd overall in 27:38. Closing out Hillsdale's top seven finishers was freshman Micah Vanderkooi, who placed 53rd (28:30) overall.
UC-Colorado Springs captured the meet title with 19 points. Minnesota State placed second with 89, and Wisconsin Parkside finished third with 95, just one point ahead of the fourth-place Chargers.
Hillsdale will run again in just two weeks at either the Joe Piane Invitational at Notre Dame or the LCC Invitational in Lansing. After that, they will have only three weeks to prepare to compete for the 2021 G-MAC Conference Championships, hosted by Cedarville on October 23rd.
Written by Allison Nimtz '23