Madison Malon

ROMEOVILLE, Ill. — Junior Madison Malon led Northern Michigan University to a 14th-place finish in a strong field of 25 teams at the Conference Crossover women’s cross country meet hosted by Lewis University on Saturday.

Eleven of the teams were nationally ranked or received votes in the most recent NCAA Division II poll conducted by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. The Wildcats finished ahead of one of those ranked teams, Concordia, California.

Northern scored 391 points and finished one place behind nationally ranked Michigan Tech, which had 358. Grand Valley State won with 36, far ahead of runner-up Lewis with 106.

NMU also finished ahead of 19th-place Wisconsin-Parkside, 20th-place Ferris State, 21st-place Davenport and 24th-place Northwood from the GLIAC.

Malon came in 39th out of 258 runners in 23 minutes, 14.80 seconds. Next for Northern was sophomore Anni Skillicorn in 55th in 23:34.2, followed by senior Elise Longley in 97th in 24:14.4, junior Emily Sterling, 128th in 24:41.4, and freshman Talon Prusi of Negaunee, 140th in 24:51.8.

Also figuring in the scoring was sophomore Meghan Langworthy, 144th in 24:55.2, and sophomore Ithaca Bergholtz, 155th in 25:03.8.

GVSU’s Klaudia O’Malley won the race in 21:54.10, just seven-tenths of a second ahead of Alexa Leppelmeier of Walsh.

The postseason begins for the Wildcats in about a week and a half with the GLIAC Championships on Oct. 23 at Saginaw Valley State. The NCAA Division II regionals are two weeks later on Nov. 6 in Evansville, Indiana.

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