The Wayne State men’s and women’s cross country teams finished out their seasons at the large and competitive NCAA Division II Central Region meet on Saturday.
 
The meet was held at the Yankton Trails soccer complex in Sioux Falls, a familiar course from the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) meet two weeks ago.
 
“It was a phenomenal field of competition,” Head Coach Marlon Brink said. “On the women’s side, the University of Mary and Duluth are sitting around the top five nationally, and so is Augustana on the men’s side.”
 
Last year’s national champion of the NCAA Division II track and field 10k, Vincent Kiprop, led the men’s field. The sophomore from Missouri Southern won the 10k race in 29:33.
 
Augustana, the NSIC champions, won the men’s division with 65 points, followed by Missouri Southern (68), Northwest Missouri State (83), Moorhead State (147) and Lindenwood (201) to round out the top five. Wayne State finished in 23rd with 666 points.
 
WSC’s Antoine Bardou finished 53rd with a time of 32:44. He was followed by Corbin Lehn in 145th (35:26), Isaias Solorio in 153rd (35:59), Noah Noeker in 161st (36:42) and Kak Ayaj in 162nd (36:57).
 
“The race started out really fast,” Lehn said. “I got out faster than I wanted. Towards the end I reminded myself that this was the last couple miles of my cross country career and that’s what got me through it.”
 
The University of Mary, the women’s NSIC champions, won the women’s division with 60 points, followed by Minnesota-Duluth (94), Southwest Baptist (121), Fort Hays State (143) and Pittsburg State (176) to round out the top five. Wayne State finished 31st with 874 points.
 
Andrea DeSimone was the Wildcats top finisher in 123rd place with a time of 23:44, followed by Jamie Larson in 176th (25:10), Lexi Oswald in 184th (25:40), Josephine Peitz in 204th (27:14), Mary Alderson in 206th (27:46) and Sarah Post in 210th (31:40).
 
The men’s team also finished 23rd last year, while the women’s team did not have enough runners to field a full team and place.
 
“We are making slow progress on both teams,” Brink said. “Antoine had a very solid season. Isaias did well coming off a red shirt season. Andrea had a very solid season. Jamie and Lexi had solid seasons as freshmen.”
 
The cross country runners will get a week off before picking back up with their training for the indoor track season.