Northern harriers are off and running now

In their first competitive meets of the season, both the Montana State University-Northern Men's and Women's cross country teams took part in the Carroll College Invitational last Friday in Helena.

Although both teams are just in their second year of existence, each acquitted itself well. The Skylights finished third in the meet, thanks to strong showings from Rachel David, who was 5th and Ashley McCReady, who took sixth for MSU-N. The Lights, on the other hand, finished fourth and had one top-10 finisher in Kai Krumwiede, who wound up seventh. Carroll won both the Men's and Women's team titles.

David, who was the highest finisher on either team, did so after running a 16:19 in the 4K. McCready, a freshman, also ran a solid time of 16:28. Nicole Parsons, who like David, is a graduate of Havre High, finished 18th (18:22), while Courtney Cota was 22nd (19:10). McKenna Barkus was 24th for the Skylights (19:43) and Breck Don also finished 25th (19:47).

Krumwiede, a freshman led the way for the Lights running a 21:09 in the 6K to earn his seventh-place finish. He was joined in the top 15 by another Northern freshman Amos Taiswa, who ran a 21:36 to get 12th. Another Blue Pony alum, Luke Karnauskas also had a solid showing (13th, 21:37), as did sophomore Beau Hyatt (16th, 22:09). Rounding things out for the Lights were Gabe Hallock (21st, 22:38) and Riley Dennis (25th, 23:11).

Both the Lights and Skylights will be back in action Saturday in Bozeman at the Montana State Running Company Invitational.