Forester Women Finish Fifth, Men Seventh at MWC Championships

Forester Women Finish Fifth, Men Seventh at MWC Championships

Four Lake Forest runners earned All-Midwest Conference honors Saturday as the women placed fifth and the men seventh at the MWC Championship Meet.

The men's 8-kilometer race was first and senior Philip Wilson led the Foresters with a fifth-place finish and time of 27:23.4. He became just the second male in program history to be named All-MWC (top 20) four times in his career.

Sophomore Christian Reyes joined Wilson among the league's best, finishing 15th in 28:08.4.

Senior Dillon Rice was 45th in 29:56.6 and classmate Aiden Pratt placed 70th with a time of 31:59.7. Freshman Lionel Whitehead rounded out the team's top five in 78th place with a time of 33:21.3.

Grinnell College was the men's team champion with 65 points, 14 fewer than runner-up Monmouth College. The Foresters finished with 177 points 62 behind sixth-place Lawrence University and 26 ahead of eighth-place Beloit College.

Lake Forest junior Yaneli Guajardo is an All-MWC runner for the third time after placing fifth in the women's race with a 6-kilometer time of 24:33.3. Meanwhile sophomore Ellen Szostak grabbed the 20th spot in the individual standings, completing the course in 25:24.7.

Three more Foresters crossed the finish line in the next 40 seconds, beginning with freshman Madeline Morland in 25th place with a time of 25:40.9. Fellow freshman Anna Mollnhuber was 29th in 25:52.2 and senior Ariane Balaram 32nd in 26:03.9.

Grinnell made it a clean sweep of the team titles with the Pioneer women scoring just 31 points. Monmouth was once again second with 57. Lake Forest's 11 were 11 more than fourth-place St. Norbert College and 42 clear of sixth-place Ripon College. The fifth-place finish at the conference meet was the Foresters' third in a row and sixth in the last seven seasons.

Lake Forest's season will continue with the NCAA Division III Midwest Regional Meet on November 16. The event will be hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh at Lake Breeze Golf Course in Winneconne, Wisconsin.