Madison Malon

BAY CITY — Junior Madison Malon finished 10th to earn First Team All-GLIAC honors while leading the Northern Michigan University women’s cross country team to a fifth-place finish in wet conditions at the GLIAC Championship on Saturday hosted by Saginaw Valley State.

This was the ninth consecutive time the Wildcats have finished in the top half of the field, which included 11 schools this year.

Malon was the first Northern runner across the line in 23 minutes, 2.5 seconds. The top 10 athletes earned First Team All-GLIAC as Malon was actually in ninth place for honors purposes. That’s because dominant Grand Valley State took the top eight places in the meet and only seven members of one team can earn the league honor.

So Malon was actually the second non-GVSU runner to finish, only behind SVSU’s Arianna Wegienka by not quite five seconds as the Cardinals runner came in at 22:57.7. The Lakers’ Hannah Becker won the race in 22:04.3.

Not surprisingly, the Lakers won the team title with a perfect 15 points, with the host Cardinals runners-up with 63. Wayne State was third with 97, Michigan Tech fourth with 109 and NMU fifth with 130.

Following the Wildcats was Wisconsin-Parkside in sixth with 172, Ferris State seventh with 198, Davenport eighth with 240, Purdue Northwest ninth with 262, Northwood 10th with 293 and Lake Superior State 11th with 349.

The second 10 finishers, in this case 12th through 24th places, were named Second Team All-GLIAC, and that included the Wildcats’ Elise Longley, who was 20th in 23:33.2.

Other NMU scorers were Emily Sterling, 34th in 24:17.5; Negaunee High School graduate Talon Prusi, 42nd in 24:28.6; Megan Langworthy, 44th in 24:29.8; Chrysanthe Patselas, 49th in 24:38.8; and Anni Skillicorn, 50th in 24:38.9.

Several other Northern runners also finished in the top 100. Ithaca Bergholtz was 55th in 24:51.4, Skylar Grubb 69th in 25:25.9, Anna Kelley 85th in 26:10.4, Morgan Lyon 95th in 27:27.3 and Aubrey Friedrich 98th in 28:05.3.

Grand Valley also won the men’s meet with 25 points as MTU was runner-up with 76. The Lakes’ Isaac Harding won in 24:35.6.

All six of the league’s major awards — both men’s and women’s Runner of the Year, Freshman of the Year and Coaching Staff of the Year — were won by Grand Valley. Each race winner earned Runner of the Year distinction.

NMU will advance to the NCAA Division II Regional Championships to be held in Evansville, Indiana, on Nov. 6.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.