Jessica Brant	Nate Winters

NAIA No. 25 Olivet Nazarene (Ill.) University won the 25-team event with 71 points to edge out host No. 18 Aquinas (100 points). Shawnee State University (158 points), Indiana Institute of Technology (186 points), and St. Xavier (Ill.) University (187 points) rounded out the top five, while MVNU finished 17th with 471 points.

Individually, Rachael Steil of Aquinas finished first out of 271 runners in 17:37.5 to beat runner-up Danielle Brenon of Houghton (N.Y.) College (17:54.7) by more than 17 seconds. Freshman Abby Spitler covered the five-kilometer course in 19:33.6 to lead the Lady Cougars as she finished 48th overall. Sophomore Jessica Brant posted her best time of the year (20:04.4) as she finished 81st, and junior Caitlin Campbell set a new personal best as she finished 107th in 20:31.2. Freshman Alex Reasoner (150th, 21:10.8), sophomore Melissa Keiser (208th, 22:29.9), sophomore Amy Chappell (216th, 22:45.0), sophomore Bethany Parks (227th, 23:17.0), and freshman Katie Worthington (257th, 25:08.4) rounded out the list for MVNU with Worthington also setting a new personal best.

"I was proud of the way the women's team competed today as an entire team,” said Wilson. "Our goal is to continue improving our team time together and we are getting closer to achieving our season goals. It was great to see Jessica and Caitlin have their best times of the season, while Abby was close to her season best. This team has a great desire to do well, and I am excited to see what they can do at the conference race.”

In the men's race, No. 2 Shawnee State ran away with the team title with 45 points to outdistance the 28-team field. No. 7 Aquinas was second with 89 points, while the University of Saint Francis (Ill.) (106 points), No. 24 Cedarville University (108 points), and Siena Heights (Mich.) University (129 points) rounded out the top five. No. 25 Cornerstone (Mich.) University (148 points) and No. 20 Olivet Nazarene (184 points) were sixth and seventh respectively, and MVNU finished 26th with 709 points.

Zach Ripley of Cornerstone captured the men's individual title with a time of 24:30.9 to edge Spring Arbor's Nathan Martin (24:37.1) by just over six seconds. Junior Nate Winters covered the eight-kilometer course in 26:52.7 – just a tenth of a second off his personal best time – to lead the Cougars as he finished 101st out of 313 runners. Freshman Jace Wolford (167th, 27:53.1), senior David Clark (229th, 29:26.6), junior Kevin Poast (232nd, 29:31.8), freshman Sebastian Rue (252nd, 30:05.3), sophomore Jacob Pessia (264th, 30:34.2), senior Chaz Rice (267th, 30:48.9), sophomore Anthony Lee (273rd, 30:57.9), and freshman Mitch McKenzie (291st, 32:14.9) rounded out the scoring for MVNU.

"The men's team ran a competitive race today with Nate running a season best time followed by a few others who were close to their season bests,” said Wilson. "We still need to improve on our team time with our No. 1-5 runners. Right now, we have a major gap of over three minutes, but I am confident that our young runners will rise to the challenge in two weeks at our conference race.”

Both MVNU teams will now spend the next two weeks training for the American Mideast Conference Meet that will take place at Houghton on November 6 with the women's race at 10:15 a.m. and the men's race to follow at approximately 11 a.m.