Tigers Tune Up For Conference Championships At Wilmington

WILMINGTON, Ohio - The Wittenberg men's and women's cross country teams put together a strong finish to the 2013 regular season at the newly re-named #JennaStrong Invitational, hosted by Wilmington.

The Tiger, in particular, performed well against a large field. Wittenberg finished 11th in a 36-team field that included runners from several scholarship programs, including Indianapolis, Wright State and Rio Grande. The Tigers wound up sixth amongst NCAA Division III programs.

Individually, senior Jacob Kuntz (Versailles, Ky./Woodford) led the way in 31st place in a time of 26:07, followed by freshman Nick Molnar (Mansfield, Ohio/Lexington) in 64th in 26:48. Junior Adam Kapuscinski (Cincinnati, Ohio/Sycamore) was next in 87th in 27:06.

Rounding things out for the Wittenberg men, senior Wade Westbrook (Columbus, Ohio/Whetstone) placed 116th in 27:22 and junior Andrew Ziminski (New Albany, Ohio/New Albany) in 131st in 27:34. A total of 416 runners were in entered in the race.

On the women's side, Wittenberg placed 24th out of 34 teams. The Tigers were paced by senior Maggie McIlvain (East Liverpool, Ohio/East Liverpool) in 134th place as she covered the 6K course in 20:37.

Sophomore Sarah Ellis (Grove City, Ohio/Grove City) placed 181st in 21:22, followed by sophomore Megan Heitkemper (Maineville, Ohio/Kings) in 189th in 21:27, freshman Erin Hord (Madison, Ohio/Madison) in 192nd in 21:30 and junior Deanna Iwanyckyi (Water Mill, N.Y./Southampton) in 218th in 21:44. The women's field included a total of 398 runners.

The #JennaStrong Invitational served as a final tune-up for the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) championship meet at Allegheny on Saturday, Nov. 2.