Northern runners compete against top competition

Still a relatively new program, the Montana State University-Northern cross country teams hadn’t ran a meet the size of the one the Lights and Skylights raced in last Saturday.

Northern was in Lewiston, Idaho, for the Inland Empire Collegiate Championships, a meet that was hosted by Lewis-Clark State, but was also a meet that featured an NCAA Division I field that featured the likes of Boise State, Washington State, Gonzaga, Idaho and the University of Montana. The meet also featured the Frontier Conference and many other non-DI schools, but in all, Northern got to race against some great competition.

In the non-DI men’s side, the Lights finished seventh with 179 points. Luke Karnauskas paced the Lights with a 26th-place finish (88th overall), with a time of 26:45.9. Karnauskas’ run was an outstanding time, given the competition. Amos Taiswa was next, in 35th (119th), in 28:00.4, while Kai Krumweide placed 38th (128th, 28:56), Beau Hyatt finished 39th (131st, 29.66) and Riley Dennis placed 41st (135th, 29.48.1).

While Karnauskas led the Northern men, Ashley McCready and Rachel David had strong showings for the Skylights. McCready ran to a 36th-place (95th overall), with a time of 20:09.8, while David was 41st (100th), in 20:23.4. Freshman Nicole Parsons raced to a 54th-place finish (118th) with a time of 22:10.6. McKenna Barkus finished in 57th place (121st, 22:42.7), Courtney Cota was 58th (122nd, 22:49.6) and Breck Don was 63rd (128th, 23:58.1), rounding out the scoring for the Skylights, who finished 10th with a 246.

MSU-N is right back on the course with its final meet of the regular season this Friday. Northern will compete at the Providence Open in Great Falls.