SHELBYVILLE, Ind. - Centre men's cross country headed to Franklin College to compete in a stacked field at the Grizzly Invitational. Facing some of the toughest teams in the Great Lakes Region, the Colonels came away with a fifth place finish thanks to six top-50 individual finishers.

The Colonels finished with a combined score of 157 points to tie with DePauw, but the Centre men got the tiebreaker thanks to their depth outside the top five. Trine picked up the win with 83 points, followed by Rose-Hulman, Case Western Reserve and Ohio Northern.

Individually, Mitchel Meier led the way for the Colonels with an 8k time of 25:58.83 to finish in 11th place overall. Reeve VanDemark, who won last week in a 6k at Berea, was the next to cross the finish line for Centre as he posted a time of 26:08.22 for 22nd place.

James Schroeder ran the second fastest 8k of his collegiate career as he finished 37th overall with a time of 26:43.34. Freshman Max Germann posted his first collegiate top-five time as he finished right behind Schroeder in 26:44.92 for 39th place.

Carter Russell capped off Centre's scoring times with a finish of 27:03.63, with Ike Synnestvedt finishing immediately behind Russell at 27:05.10 to give Centre the tiebreaker nod over DePauw and secure a top-five team finish for the Colonels.

NEXT UP

The Centre men will have the next week off from competition and will resume racing on Sept. 21 with the Rhodes Invitational.