The UW-Whitewater men and women’s cross country teams both competed at the UW-Oshkosh Kollege Town Sports Invitational at Lake Breeze Golf Club in Winneconne, Wisconsin

The men’s team placed 17th out of the 37 team field, while the women’s team placed 30th out of 36 teams.

Harms leads men’s side

Junior Brett Harms  led the way for the Warhawks again, finishing fifth overall out of 551 competitors with a time of 25:09. Sophomore Jonah Nelson finished the course with a time of 26:45 to place 97th overall.

Nelson discussed Harms steadiness and how his success helps the team.

“Brett has been consistently racing extremely well and that has helped us tremendously,” Nelson said. “We all need to step up and push each other to help out Brett as much as we can to move up in the team standings.”

Senior Scott Wolter placed 122nd overall with a time of 27 minutes on the dot. Sophomore Noah Stamsta ran the course in a time of 27:18 to place 144th overall, while teammate Braeden Michael finished with a time of 27:27 to place 151st.

“The meet was a little different than we have been used to this year because of the size of the field.  With almost 600 runners this race, it got pretty hectic,” Nelson said.

Junior Alec Meixelsperger finished seven seconds behind Michael with a time of 27:34 to place 155th overall. Sophomore Grant Miller placed 159th overall with a time of 27:38 to round out the scoring for the Warhawks.

Women’s team finishes in middle of pack

On the women’s side, sophomore Liz Mielke finished the course with a time of 24:16 to place 136th overall to lead UW-Whitewater. Freshman Sydney Prestifilippo placed 183rd overall out of 528 runners with a time 25:12.

“The meet was awesome, the course was really flat and the weather was perfect so everyone had really impressive performances,” Prestifilippo said.

Teammate Mara Wiebke finished the course with a time of 25:34 to place 193rd overall.

Junior Emma Knudtson and freshman Manda Slaback both crossed the finish line at 25:39, while freshman Hailey Van Ells finished four seconds later at 25:43 to place 197th overall. Junior Monica Sweet finished the course with a time of 25:57 to round out the scoring for the Warhawks.

“All the girls have been running so great this year, it’s really inspirational to watch and to run with them. As a team I think we need to focus on running together and working with each other,” Prestifilippo said.  “We all do such a good job pushing each other at practice and it’s the same at meets.”

Whitewater cross country teams will travel back to the same course, on Oct. 21 to compete in the UW-Oshkosh Open at Lake Breeze Golf Club. The women are scheduled to start at 1:30p.m., while the men will run at 2:30 p.m.