Cross Country | 10/26/2019 4:12:00 PM

Meet Results
WAYNE, Neb. – Led by a third-place finish from senior Nadir Yusuf, the Minnesota State University Moorhead men's cross country team finished second at the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Championships which were held Saturday in Wayne, Neb.  The Dragon women finished 11th.

The MSUM men finished with 67 points, trailing winner Augustana by 30. Sioux Falls finished third with 92 points.

"We came into the race throwing time out the window…we knew which teams we needed to stack up against," MSUM head track and field and cross country coach Ryan Milner said. "We wanted to identify those people and position ourselves to be competitive and that's largely what they did."

Yusuf finished with an 8K time of 25:22.47 to finish third and earn All-NSIC first team honors for the first time in his Dragon career. The previous three years he had earned All-NSIC Second Team honors and has never finished outside the top 20 at the conference meet.

"The track season last year has been a big springboard for him," Milner said. "It's fun to see him do the things that he had the expectation of when we recruited him."

Junior Nick Marshall earned All-NSIC second team honors with a career-best 11th-place finish on Saturday. His 8K time was 26:23.65. Junior Logan Spooner was also All-NSIC second team, placing 12^th in 26:25.67.

MSUM had four runners in the top 20 as junior Elijah Herrick finished 18^th in 26:34.72 to also earn All-NSIC second team honors.

"Our group has been working five months towards this championship season," Spooner said. "We've been underrated all year but we don't let other people's opinion of us affect our performances. We did what we needed to do to today and had some big performances across the team. Moving forward we are all looking forward to the region meet in two weeks and showing people what our group is capable of."

Sophomore Carson Speicher was 23^rd in 26:51.98 while junior Drew Mears was 38th in 27:23.71.

The women finished with 317 points. Senior Kathryn Sistrunk was the top finisher, taking 44th in 24:07.93. Freshman LaKyla Yazzie was 70th in 24:56.68 while sophomore Andrea Wells was 77th in 25:06.10. Freshman Lindsey Werner was 81st in 25:13.58 while freshman McKenzie Maki was 97th. Junior Megan Kucera was 103rd in 26:06.09 while sophomore Caleigh Anderson was 106th in 26:15.86.

"It was a learning day…we had a lot of young people who haven't been here and were a little nervous," Milner said. "The good thing is we can sit down now and figure out what we need to do to get better as we go forward."

The Dragon teams now turn their attention to the Central Region meet which will be held on Nov. 9  Joplin, Mo.

"There are still some things we can work on to get better," Milner said. "The big goal is to qualify for nationals and get the men's team back there."