MTU Women fifth; NMU Women sixth
GREEN BAY, Wis. — For the second consecutive year, the Michigan Tech men’s squad came away with the win scoring 44 points at the third annual Phoenix Open on Friday afternoon. The women placed fifth with 131 points.
Quotable
“It would be hard to be much happier with how we opened our season,” head coach Robert Young said. “We had a significant number of student-athletes run really excellent races showing some really nice growth over last year. Sophia found herself among the few at the front of the race early and learned some valuable lessons she can carry with her into our more important races later in the season. It looks like the strength of our women’s team is going to be our pack. It was great to see so many of our women racing so closely with each other and moving as a pack. I think our women are a stronger unit than last fall and the significant improvements from Ingrid and Claire are at the core of that.
“Our men appear to be as good as we had hoped. I figured we had a strong front three in Tucker, Sam and newcomer Michael Dennis but I was quite pleased to see Colman and Sawyer so close behind them. We ran a patient and conservative race plan today so it will be fun to see what we can do when we really open up and go for it from the gun.”
“Our teams are off to a fantastic start,” assistant coach Luke Moore added. “We went into the race with the goal of having the strongest last 1000m in the field. By and large, both teams executed the race plan very well. On the women’s side, Claire showed composure and grit. She closed her last 1000m in 3:45 and raced to a significant step forward in her career. We had a good pack for both teams. On the men’s side, Sam Lange closed in 2:59 and was probably the fastest runner over the last 1000m in the entire field. We are looking forward to using what we learned today in future races.”
The top-five executed the race plans exceptionally with a spread of 15 seconds and an average time of 25:12. JUCO transfer Michael Dennis (25:08.1) led a pack of three Huskies with last year’s winner, Tucker Ringhand (25:09.3) and Sam Lange (25:09.6) placing sixth, seventh and eighth, respectively.
Sophomore Colman Lenci made his collegiate debut on the grass with an impressive 25:12.3 to place ninth. Junior Sawyer Fowler took the fifth spot for the Black & Gold, smashing his 8k PR by 35 seconds clocking 25:23 good for 14th overall.
Rounding out the Huskies top-7 were juniors Callen Carrier (25:38.3) and Sam Marshall (25:51.1) placing 22nd and 28th, respectively.
Sophomore Lucas Seng lowered his 8k personal-record by almost a minute with his time of 26:33.7 placing him 59th in the field.
The Michigan Tech women showed out with a fifth-place finish over the 6k course Friday afternoon. The Huskies scored 131 points and triumphed over U.P. rival, Northern Michigan scoring 165 points for sixth-place.
The women’s squad was led by sophomore low-stick Sophia Rhein with a fourth-place finish covering the 6k course in 22:21.3 lowering last year’s time by 18 seconds.
Following Rhein, Tech’s 2-5 runners made use of packing running finishing within 12 seconds of each other. Junior’s Ingrid Halverson (23:22.8) and Clair Endres (23:24.2) finished 29th and 30th, respectively with Endres running a 23-second personal-best. Freshman Erica Kazin placed fourth for the Huskies taking 33rd in the field in a time of 23:30.8. Senior Cedar Gordon was the fifth runner for the Black & Gold placing 35th in 23:32.8.
Bridget Burns ran a personal-best time of 23:34.0 shaving 33 seconds off her previous PR to take 37th-place. Alice Teige was the seventh finisher for the Huskies.
Sophomore Hannah Kilpatrick shaved three seconds off her personal-best with her time of 24:12.5.
In total, 18 student-athletes made their collegiate debut for Michigan Tech in the season opener.
The Huskies are back in action on Friday, Sept. 20, traveling to the Twin Cities for the Roy Griak Invitational.
Two NMU sophomores recorded top-25 finishes. Dani Van Lente was the first Wildcat across the finish line, recording a time of 23:05.2 for 19th place. Not far behind that was Emma Sweeney finishing in 24th at a time of 23:16.1.
The Wildcats had five others finish in the top 50. Lamar Gordon took 39th (23:41.1), Celia Wallace finished in 40th in her first collegiate race (23:43.4), Lola Korpi crossed in 43rd in her Wildcat debut (23:48.5), Anya Vansweden, also in her first race, took 48th (23:55.1), and Beverly Harper crossed in 50th place (24:00.1).
Winona State took first place as a team, followed by Purdue Fort Wayne and St. Thomas. Individually, UW-Milwaukee’s Anelise Egge took the victory with a time of 21:39.5.
The Green and Gold will take a weekend off ahead of the Roy Griak Invite hosted by the University of Minnesota on Friday, September 20.
