LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Trine University men's cross country team conquered the field in their 8k heat of the Louisville Invite on Saturday. The Thunder were best of the 32 teams in their race spread over all three NCAA Divisions as well as NAIA competition.
Trine scored 97 points en route to dominating their opposition. Second-place team Wabash College had 251 points.
Head Coach Zach Raber had this to say of the team's performance: "The men's team ran a really good race today in tough conditions. Ryan [Hoopingarner] and Joseph [Packard] got it done up front and Jacob [Myers], Matthew [Edison] and Max [VanHuis] just moved up the whole race. It was nice to get a win on an iconic XC course!"
The Thunder placed two runners inside the top-10 in their race. Ryan Hoopingarner was third overall with a time of 25:30.6, just one-tenth of a second off of his career-best mark set one race ago. Joseph Packard snuck into the tenth spot with a time of 25:59.0.
A group of Matthew Edison, Max VanHuis and Jacob Myers were 29th, 30th and 32nd on the leaderboard to help the team score the victory. Edison ran a 26:34.7, Van Huis a 26:35.6 and Myers crossed the finish line in 26:36.5. The freshman Van Huis was able to take 30 seconds off of his previous best from Michigan State University two weeks ago.
Tanner McMain was just behind that group in the 38th spot with a time of 26:40.6. Tyler Hartleroad was also competitive by completing the event in 27:09.9 (64th). The mark is a new career-best for the sophomore.
The Thunder will compete in the Bethel University XC Invitational on Friday, October 6 for their next event. The race begins at 3:15 p.m.