Abby Spitler	Nate Winters

In the women's race, the University Findlay won the 31-team event with 103 points to edge runner-up Tiffin University (108 points). Otterbein University (119 points), Wittenberg University (131 points), and host Wilmington (161 points) rounded out the top five teams. MVNU finished with 354 points in 13th place.

Individually, Heather Waterman of Franklin (Ind.) College set a new meet record by finishing the 5K course in 18:14.5 to edge runner-up Annie Cekada (18:27.1) of Wilmington by over 12 seconds. Freshman Abby Spitler led the Lady Cougars as she finished 21st out of 319 runners in 19:27.3 to break her own school record by over 11 seconds. Sophomore Jessica Brant (20:34.5, 68th), junior Caitlin Campbell (20:44.5, 79th), and freshman Alex Reasoner (20:49.9, 86th) gave MVNU its combined fastest top four times of the year, while sophomore Melissa Keiser (22:09.0, 157th), sophomore Amy Chappell (22:33.2, 186th), sophomore Bethany Parks (23:16.1, 220th), and freshman Katie Worthington (25:16.6, 277th) all posted new personal bests to round out the roster for the Lady Cougars.

"Abby ran a standout race again today with another school-record performance, and she was followed by a great No. 2-4 pack with Jessica, Caitlin, and Alex not far behind,” said Wilson. "Amy is continuing to improve, and it was great to see her have a personal best time by almost 40 seconds. This women's team has come a long way, and I am excited to see what they can do up in Michigan next week.”

In the men's race, Tiffin won the team title with 49 points to easily outdistance runner-up Findlay (115 points). Centre (Ky.) College (168 points), Franklin (183 points), and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (Ind.) (186 points) rounded out the top five teams. The Cougars finished with 537 points in 18th place.

Individually, Jairus Kipkemoi of Lindsey Wilson (Ky.) College set a new course record as he finished in a time of 24:41.9 – a blazing 4:58.2 pace per mile. Junior Nate Winters led MVNU by covering the 8K course in 26:56.1 to finish 54th out of 329 runners. Freshman Jace Wolford (27:51.1, 101st), senior David Clark (29:13.4, 188th), freshman Sebastian Rue (29:18.3, 191st), junior Kevin Poast (29:25.0, 196th), sophomore Jacob Pessia (30:00.1, 233rd), sophomore Anthony Lee (30:23.2, 245th), senior Chaz Rice (30:24.1, 246th), sophomore Mark Rednour (31:28.2, 269th), and freshman Mitch McKenzie (31:59.4, 282nd) rounded out the lineup for the Cougars with Rue, Poast, Pessia, Rednour, and McKenzie each posting new personal bests.

"Nate ran the race he deserved today,” said Wilson. "He has been working hard all season and tonight he broke through with a great race. I challenged these guys to have our top five times under 30 minutes and we almost had six with Jacob just missing that mark. David, Kevin, Jace, and Sebastian joined Nate in the top five scoring spots to meet this challenge, and I could not have been more proud of their performances. All the runners have helped to make this a fun season, and I look forward to the coming weeks.”

"We could not have asked for a better day to race at Wilmington,” said Wilson. "These last two weeks have been encouraging – to see how far we have come as a team this season. After reflecting on this race tonight, it is clear to me that we still need to work on some race tactics, but we are getting closer to where we want to be when the conference race rolls around on November 6.”

MVNU will return to action on October 23 when the teams travel to Aquinas (Mich.) College for the NAIA Great Lakes Invitational that will feature several of the top NAIA teams in the country.