Northern Michigan University’s Madi Szymanski leads the way in the collegiate part of the Wildcat Open cross country meet held on campus in Marquette on Aug. 22. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

MARQUETTE — The women’s cross country team at Northern Michigan University found the perfect time to win an invitational, even if it had to travel more than a thousand miles to do it.

The Wildcats won the 18-school Royals Challenge in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Oct. 10, its last team-scoring meet before Saturday’s Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Championship set for 11 a.m. Saturday in downstate Grand Rapids on the Calvin University course.

This is what NMU hopes is just the first step in the postseason, with the NCAA Midwest Regional meet scheduled for Nov. 8 and the national NCAA Division II Championship set for Nov. 22, both coincidentally in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where GLIAC member Wisconsin-Parkside is located.

The Northern runners also participated at the Husky Invitational hosted by Michigan Tech in Houghton last Friday, but that was a nonscoring meet.

With its top-five finishes in all four scoring meets it participated in during September and this month, the Wildcats are ranked No. 15 in the most recent weekly national poll put out by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.

NMU also moved up one spot to No. 4 in the most recent Midwest Region rankings.

Fans can follow @NMU_Track_Field and @NMU_Wildcats on X for updates leading up to and during the meet, or visit the NMU athletics website at nmuwildcats.com and look under the women’s cross country schedule for links to a recap of results, an actual listing of results and a history of NMU at the meet.

“From what I’ve heard, the (GLIAC) course runs similarly to Parkside, which is where we’ve run already, and then where our regionals and nationals will be,” Northern head coach Jenny Ryan said in an NMU Sports Information news release previewing the meet. “Right now, we’re sitting in No. 2 behind Grand Valley in the GLIAC.

“So really the goal will be to see if we can get up closer to Grand Valley and then also make sure we’re ahead of those other teams.”

After taking part in the exhibition Wildcat Open in Marquette on Aug. 22, the NMU women opened at the Phoenix Open at Wisconsin-Green Bay on Sept. 6, finishing as runners-up. Senior Madi Szymanski, as she did all season, led the Wildcats in fifth in 22 minutes, 14.8 seconds. Freshman Ashley Choponis had a good college debut in seventh, with Lamar Gordon 11th and Sophia Potter 12th.

Then on Sept. 19 at the Roy Griak Invitational in Minneapolis, Szymanski led seven Northern runners cracking the top 30 in a field of over 250. She was fifth in 23:15.8, Choponis eighth, Gordon 14th, Emma Sweeney 23rd and Dani VanLente 24th.

The next weekend on Sept. 27, NMU was fourth of 23 teams at the Lucian Rosa Invite hosted by Parkside, Szymanski leading the Wildcats in ninth in 21:37.1, Choponis a personal best while finishing 18th, Gordon 41st and Potter 44th.

Then came the Royals Challenge in North Carolina, the team’s only five-kilometer (3.1-mile) race instead of the usual collegiate 6K (3.7-mile) length. Because of that, Szymanski was able to break a 26-year-old NMU record, coming in third in 17:18.7, with Choponis on her heels in fourth in 17:26.3.

While also setting her personal 5K best by a big margin, Szymanski broke a 1999 Northern record that was her fourth straight top-10 finish for the season since coming back from an injury that ended her 2024 campaign.

Also at the Royals, Sweeney was ninth, Beverly Harper 13th and Potter 15th, the Wildcats needing every one of them as they scored 39 points to nearby Catawba’s 47.

At the Husky Invite, Northern’s Paige Anderson was fourth in 25:15.2, Anya VanSweden fifth, Lana Mac sixth, Marquette Senior High School graduate Abby Harma seventh and MSHS product Monet Argeropoulos 10th.

For her efforts, Szymanski earned GLIAC Cross Country Athlete of the Week in back-to-back weeks, with Northern reaching the USTFCCCA national poll for the first time since 2019.

Last year at the GLIACs, VanLente was 31st in 22:53.8 as NMU was seventh of 11 schools. Gordon was 38th, Celia Wallace 45th and Harper 52nd.

Story contents based on Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release previewing the meet. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.