West Salem, WI. The Saints Women's Cross-Country team traveled to West Salem, Wisconsin, knowing they were missing a couple of key players who earned them a top-10 ranking the last two weeks in the NCAA North Region. Despite the trimmed roster, Regan DeWitt (Bemidji, Minn./Bemidji HS) led the Saints to a respectable 8^th of 25 teams when the dust settled at the Tori Neubauer Invitational women's 6k, hosted by the University of Wisconsin LaCrosse.

Key Takeaways
The host #2 regionally-ranked and #15 nationally-ranked Eagles, were led by race winner Gwen Hinz, in a time of 22:07.6. The Eagles would place three in the top five, and seven in the top ten to win comfortably with 21 points.   South Dakota State was second with 113 points, while Paradise Valley Community College (Phoenix, AZ) took third with 125.
DeWitt went out strong and asserted herself in a chase group of the leading eight runners who had already pulled away by the mile mark.  Running with the most confidence she's shown this season, DeWitt crossed the line 12^th in a time of 22:59.6, just 1.4 seconds shy of her personal best 6k time.
Grace McCormick (Duluth, Minn./Denfeld HS) finished next for the Saints in 28^th place and a personal best time of 23:24.9.  Kelsey Johannes (Anchorage, Alaska/West Anchorage HS) again scored in the third spot in a season-best, and all-time second-best 6k time of 23:32.0. Stepping up to score 4^th for the Saints was Emily Erickson (Anchorage, Alaska/A.J. Dimond HS) placing 96^th in a personal best 25:19.4.  Rounding out the scoring for the Saints was Mollykate Hagen in 108^th also posting a personal best 6k time of 25:31.8.
The Saints scored 218 points.

A Word from Coach Salmela
Head coach, Chad Salmela, was thrilled with the team's performance.  "We came down here the last two years with a couple of key personnel needing to sit out, and the team on the course each time, stepped up as big as they possibly could to fill the scoring gaps," glowed Salmela. Saturdays, all five scorers set personal or season-best 6k times; those who didn't set a PB were within seconds of doing so.  "You can't ask for more than that of your team.  That's just as good or more than you can expect from your team on any given day, and it tells me that, as a team, we are on firm footing with our fitness right now."

But Salmela also felt a little twinge of déjà vu from the 2023 edition that was a missed opportunity for the Saints.  "LaCrosse is a big invitational.  When you leave a podium team-finish at a big meet like this on the table, two years in a row, that's tough to swallow if you have a single competitive bone in your body," said Salmela.  "You don't see a lot of top-three team finishes in major invitationals in our program's record books.  To leave those there,  just hanging in the ether, two years in a row, just kind of stings."

Up Next
The Saints now go into preparation for the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Championship hosted by St. Olaf, on November 2.