WEST SALEM, Wis. - Gustavus cross country raced at the annual Jim Drews/Tori Neubauer Invitational on Saturday, hosted by UW-La Crosse, with the women taking fourth place out of 20 teams and the men finishing 12th out of 20. 

"We knew we had a great month of training coming into this week and we really challenged them today to go out and take a shot," said Head Coach Brenden Huber. 

Molly Liston continued to lead the Gustie women, taking second place overall in a field of 237 runners. Liston progressively moved up the pack throughout the race. She crossed the 2k mark in ninth place, moved up to eighth at the 3k, fourth at the 4k, and then held second place through the 5k and finish line with a season-best time of 22:23.3. Liston was 16 seconds behind the winner, Gwen Hinz of UW-La Crosse. 

"We've been working with Molly on her race plan and she executed it excellent today," Huber said. "UW-La Crosse had their full assortment of runners and they are a national meet contender, so she gained a lot of confidence running with that group. Sydney followed with another great race and really all of the ladies stepped up today. Everyone competed hard."

Sydney Hagen had another strong showing, finishing in 11th place with a time of 23:08.1. Kailyn Walukas, Mackenzie Murphy, and Aubrey Mair rounded out the top-five for the Gusties, taking 35th (23:51.5), 48th (24:05.5), and 73rd (24:43.5), respectively. 

Tyler Smith once again led the men's squad with a 22nd place finish in 25:52.7, which was 1:46 behind the winner Mohammed Bati of Augsburg, who cleared the second place runner by nearly a minute. Will Janzen was next for Gustavus, taking 56th in 26:40.1. Evan Pouliot took 94th in 27:33.9, Carson Roehl finished 115th in 28:03.5, and Camden Cilek placed 139th in 28:27.3 

"We've done a good job in training but now we need to figure out how to race," Huber said. "Tyler executed his race plan as well as the others, but we put ourselves in a position where we had too much work to do to make up ground. We started a little too far back today, but overall I'm really happy with how they responded. We saw some big movement at the 5k and they showed some strength we haven't seen in a while." 
 
Gustavus now prepares for the MIAC Championships, held Nov. 2 in Northfield.