The Wayne State College men’s and women’s crosscountry teams competed at the Augustana Twilight Invite last Friday. The men’s team placed 19th and scored 525 points, while the women’s team improved with 14th place and scored 445 points.

Head coach Marlon Brink thought that both teams did well.

“[The women] ran pretty well, most everybody improved their times from last year which is good to see. [The men] packed it up pretty well from the 1st runner to the 7th runner.”

The WSC men’s top finisher was senior Dylan Kessler from Apache Junction, Arizona and the top finisher for the women’s team was sophomore Allie Rosener from Hartington, Nebraska. Kessler placed 113th with a time of 21:03 and Rosener placed 105th with a time of 19:59.

When asked about their individual performances, both runners had a difference of opinion. Kessler praised his performance in the men’s race.

“I ran it strategically in the beginning and finished off strong at the end,” Kessler said.

Rosener immediately focused how she can improve throughout the season.

“There’s some things (I can improve on) with like pacing, and through people with our conference that I can push with,” Rosener said.

As a complete men’s and women’s team, Kessler and Rosener believed that each of their teams did well.

“It was one of our best races as a team since I’ve been here,” Kessler said. “We ran with a very good pack mentality and stayed close together.”

“I think we did pretty well compared to last year but there’s always room for improvement,” Rosener said. “We have some people that have injuries so when those all get healed we’ll be even better.”

Brink would like to see improvements within each of the teams throughout the rest of the season.

“I want to see us continue to drop our gap from the No. 1 (runner) to the No. 7 runner,” Brink said. “I want to see us become more competitive with the schools from the NSIC.”

Brink went on to say that each team’s performance in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) Championship serves as a measuring stick to the Wildcat runners. Wayne State College hosts the NSIC Championships on Oct. 26.

The Wildcats next meet is the Dakota State Invite on Sept. 14 in Madison, South Dakota followed by their home meet on Sept. 27.