After the UW-Whitewater men’s and women’s cross country teams both started the season off with top-two finishes, the men placed sixth and the women finished ninth at the Blugold Invitational Sept. 29 in Colfax, Wisconsin.

The men’s team tallied a total time of 2:11:05 in 13-team, eight-kilometer race, 32 seconds off the pace of fifth-place St. Olaf.

“It was good [the men’s placement] because we have a couple guys injured right now,” Head Coach Jeff Miller said. “Without them we figured, we’ll see what the young guys can do and they did well. We did very well for where we’re at in the season and our training.”

The women finished with a total time of 2:01:26 in the 15-team, six-kilometer race, right behind conference foes UW-Stout, UW-Oshkosh and UW-Platteville.

“The women ran a lot of personal records, they just had really nice races,” Miller said. “From a standpoint of how we’re progressing with our training, we had positive results from the meet. In the team play standpoint, we were probably a little under what we’d like to achieve.”

For the men, it was senior Brett Harms that led the way with a time of 25:14.6, good for sixth place out of 257 runners.

Harms, a 2016 All-American, now has a first place and sixth place finish under his belt to start the season, but said he can improve even more.

“I’m building on last year’s success,” Harms said. “I was happy with last year, but I also want to do a lot better than last year.”

Freshman David Fassbender came in second for the Warhawks and finished 38th overall with a time of 26:13.7.

Senior Alec Meixelsperger clocked in at 26:23.5 for a 44th place finish, with freshman Kyle Neuroth right behind at 26:24.6 at the 45th spot.

On the women’s side, it was junior Liz Mielke with the top time and personal record for the Warhawks at 23:40.4, good for the 54th placement.

Mielke, who finished second for UW-W in the team’s first meet of the year, contributed her early success to her team and coaches.

“We just have a lot of good momentum on our team right now,” Mielke said. “It’s really nice to come to practice and know you’ll get a good workout in with people who are all on the same page.”

Other Warhawk runners to crack the top 100 finishers on the women’s side were freshman Jessie Braun (23:54.9) at 63, junior Manda Slaback (24:26.4) at 82 and sophomore Sydney Prestifilippo (24:34.0) at 93.

The Warhawks will have a week off before both teams head to the Cowbell Classic, a meet that Miller noted as one of the most important of the year, on Oct. 14 in Elsah, Illinois.