Wayne State College’s women’s cross country team finished 12th place out of 16 teams in the NSIC Championship that was hosted at the Wayne Country Club Nov. 5.  

Junior Alison Steinman was the highest placed Wildcat, placing 71st with a time of 25:07.54 on the 6k meter course.  

The other wildcats that competed in the meet were junior Kelsey Larsen, who finished 75th with a time of 25:12.80, junior Kylie Pachta finished 86th with a time of 25:41.05, freshman Faith Polacek finished 119th with a time of 27:40.91, freshman Maelee Beacom finished 123rd with a time of 27:49.42, freshman Kenzie Mosel finished 125th with a time of 27:59.10 and freshman Ava McGown finished 130th with a time of 28:14.72.  

Head Coach Marlon Brink said he was proud of how his team did at the meet. 

“We were running without our number one and number two girls Lindsey Stuckey and Brooke Solomon who are out with injuries and also Madeline Kunz who’s been in our top five, who was out with an illness,” Brink said. “So, despite running without those three girls, we finished the same as what we finished the year before which is 12th place. I was pretty happy with that – had we had those other three girls in there, I think we could have moved up a couple spots in the overall standings. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to have those girls in the race on Saturday.” 

The first-place runner was Lindsay Cunningham for Winona State, finishing with a time of 20:22.80, more than a whole minute in front of the second-place runner Alyssa Becker of University of Mary with a time of 21:26.60. Augustana as a team won the meet, with a total of 56 points and an average time 22:15.03. 

Cross country has the NCAA Central Region Championship in Joplin, Missouri on Saturday, Nov. 19.