An all-conference runner his sophomore year, St. Scholastica's Chris Rubesch (Spooner, Wis./Spooner HS) labored through a junior year in which an injury slowed his performances all season long. But on Saturday at the 2007 UMAC cross country championship, the senior completed his comeback by winning the conference individual title in a time of 27:57 over the 8-kilometer course conducted on the Far Par Golf course in Duluth.

 

Crown College's Seth Brickley kept pace early with Rubesch but fell back through the later stages of the races, finishing second with a time of 28:09.

 

It was a purple wave of Northwestern College runners that carried the day, though,  as the Eagles captured the team crown behind a rush of four consecutive runners to cross the finish beginning with Zach Marshall's third place time of 28:28.

 

Jake Rippelmeyer, Joel Groten, and Tanner Bulock followed Marshall as Northwestern had four of their five scoring runners finish within the top six.

 

Jason Kask (Duluth, Minn./Duluth East HS) and Tyler Kjorstad (Duluth, Minn./Marshall School), seventh and ninth, respectively, also finished in the top ten for St. Scholastica but the Saints fell 11 points shy of repeating as the UMAC team champion following their first championship title last fall.

 

Along with Rubesch, Brickley, Marshall, Rippelmeyer, Groten, Bulock, Kask, and Kjorstad, also earning All-UMAC honors were Minnesota-Morris' Luke Toso and Andrew Rehmann.

 

Final team scores: