St Olaf Takes Men's Team Tile, Gustavus the Women's at MIAC Championships

Gustavus prevented a St Olaf sweep Saturday by winning the women's team race by three points, while the Ole men, led by individual champ sophomore Grant Whintheiser(25:08.1), scored 54 points, 43 in front of second place St. Thomas in the men's.

St. Thomas senior  Taylor Berg won the women's individual crown in 21:39.3, overtaking St Olaf sophomore Jordan Johnson(21:54.4) in the later stages of the race.  The women's team race came down to a trio of Gustavus seniors--Kate Eggers(tenth, 22:56.6), Elizabeth Hauer(twelveth, 23:01.9) and Meredith Bache-Wiig(twenty sixth,23:34.2) who worked their way up through the race to eke out the narrow victory.  Johnson and her day-glow yellow singlet clad teammates took off hard from the gun, but couldn't hold their fast early pace.

The Ole men were more conservative, sitting in third place in the early going behind Bethel(third, 101) and Hamline(fifth, 133), before methodically picking off runners in front of them on the hilly Como Park course to ease to victory.  St Thomas employed a similar strategy, improving their positions throughout the race to finish ahead of Bethel by four points and fourth place St. Johns by five.

Whintheiser, wearing stylish shades and whose younger sibling qualified for the MSHSL XC championships this week for his St. Cloud Cathedral team that won the snow postponed 5A  Section meet yesterday and was at the MIAC race to cheer on his brother, also had his patience tested as runner-up Micheale Tesema, an Augsburg junior, broke away from him going into the race's last loop, but was caught and passed by Whintheiser in the last mile

Full men's results are HERE.  Women's results are HERE.  Videos and photos of the races are HERE.