In the men’s race, the Cougars finished ninth out of 20 teams with 261 points. The host Yellow Jackets, who are ranked No. 13 in the latest NAIA poll, won the eight-kilometer event with 33 points to edge No. 25 Shawnee State University (67 points). Otterbein College (122 points), NCAA Division I Wright State University (128 points), and University of the Cumberlands (Ky.) (179 points) rounded out the top five team finishers.

Keagan Rathkamp of Shawnee State won the men’s race as he covered the course in 25:27 to beat runner-up T.J. Badertscher of Cedarville by nearly 11 seconds. Junior Mark Porostosky was the top finisher for MVNU as he came in 17th out of 197 runners in 27:03.4. Freshman Nate Winters set a new personal best as he came in 35th in 27:37.6, while sophomore Zach Stiverson was 79th in 28:54.4. Freshman Blake Heinlen (29:11.8, 84th), sophomore David Clark (30:24.2, 113th), freshman Jameson Seymour (left) (31:32.7, 137th), and junior Dustin Wine (35:54.5, 174th) rounded out the times with Seymour also improving on his personal best by over 23 seconds.

“The men’s team has been working hard and I was pleased to see two of the runners post personal best times as both Nate and Jameson had significant improvements from our first race,” said MVNU coach Chip Wilson. “All of these guys have been working great together and the encouragement and work ethic I have seen is very promising for future races.”

In the women’s race, No. 22 Shawnee State (44 points) edged Otterbein (50 points) and Wright State (83 points) to capture the women’s team title. The Lady Cougars finished with 367 points to place 15th out of 18 teams. The host Lady Jackets, who are currently ranked No. 1 in the NAIA, did not participate due to running in another race in Wisconsin where the NAIA National Meet will take place in November.

Lisa Davies of Shawnee State nipped teammate Star Emmert by five-tenths of a second to earn the individual title as the pair finished 34 seconds ahead of third-place Rachel Dean of Judson (Ill.) University. MVNU was led by freshman Caitlin Campbell who came within nine seconds of the school record time of 21:11.3 set in 2006 by former Lady Cougar Lauren Hall. Campbell finished 46th out of 174 runners in 21:20.0. Freshman Katelyn Felger set a personal best as well as she finished 75th in 22:30.2, while freshman Heidi Raidel was 97th in 23:29.1. Sophomore Ashley Morse (24:06.6, 115th), freshman DeAnna Hardeman (24:44.6, 125th), and freshman Nikki Yates (25:05.7, 130th) also each set new personal bests, while freshman Lauren Ford (25:50.4, 138th) and junior Brittany Click (31:10.1, 170th) rounded out the times for MVNU.

“The women’s team has also been working well together and showing signs of improvements,” said Wilson. “I was pleased to see many of our girls run their best times of the year with Katelyn making the biggest improvement of nearly 51 seconds. It is encouraging to see improvements, but because it is still early in the year we are still discovering how we want to run our race. I am looking forward to our next race and after today’s performance I know the runners are ready to compete again.”

“Both teams took another step forward with our young teams in a solid performance at Cedarville,” Wilson continued. “We have been working on improving our mile splits in the second half of the race, and I was pleased to see some improvements in this area. On both the men’s and women’s teams, I saw us running a much stronger race than I saw two weeks ago at Shawnee State.”

Both MVNU teams will return to action next Saturday at the Otterbein College Invitational with the men’s race starting at 11:00 a.m. and the women’s race following at 11:45 a.m.