Ella DeBruyn finishes first for the second straight race
DETROIT – The Northern Michigan cross country team continued its impressive run on Saturday, powering past nine other teams to capture the WSU Warrior Challenge title in the Motor City.
The Wildcats delivered a dominant team performance, tallying just 35 points to finish 40 points ahead of runner-up Saginaw Valley State. Wayne State placed third with 78 points.
For the second consecutive meet, junior Ella DeBruyn led the way with an individual victory. She crossed the finish line in 21:29.9, just seconds shy of her career-best time, edging UIndy’s Elise Peckinpaugh by over two seconds to secure another first-place finish for the Wildcats.
Ashley Choponis added a third-place finish in 21:52.5, while Lamar Gordon placed fifth in 22:13.4. The performances gave the Green and Gold three of the top five finishers.
NMU continued to showcase its depth throughout the field, with Anya VanSweden finishing 12th (22:54.8), Dani VanLente taking 14th (22:56.9), Addison Jones placing 19th (23:05.5), and Lola Korpi finishing 26th (23:22.8) to round out the team scoring.
Celia Wallace (23:36.1, 38th) and Macy Guikema (23:44.7, 40th) also cracked the top 40 in a field of more than 100 runners.
Full results from today’s meet can be found here.
