The South Dakota Mines Hardrocker cross country teams competed in the RMAC Championship in Colorado Springs, CO on Saturday October 24th. The Rockers finished the meet with a 10th place finish for the men and 11th place for the women.

" We had a few people run really well today, but unfortunately we fell short of our team goals," said Hardrocker cross country head coach Steve Johnson. "We saw some good improvements compared to the beginning of the season and even compared to last year but clearly have a ways to go still."

Colorado School of Mines won the men's division with 22 points. Western Colorado won the women's division with 44 points. The Hardrockers scored 309 (men) and 326 (women) respectively.

The men were led by Timothy Dunham (38th) with a time of 26:11.1. Monty Christo, III (71st 27:47.2), Anders Watts (78th 28:06.2), Theron Singleton (82nd 28:17.8), Andrew Ferris (83rd 28:20.4), Sam Elliott (91st 29:14.4), and Grant Bauer (102nd 30:33.5) rounded out the rest of the field for the Hardrockers.

"On the men's side Timothy Dunham had a solid performance and it looks like he's earned a spot in the D2 National Invitational in 3 weeks in Lubbock, Texas," Johnson said.

Taylor Bright was the highest finisher for the Hardrockers with a time of 24:13.2 for 58th place. Lindsay Butler (70th 24:30.0), Alyssa Franke (74th 24:39.8), Abigaile Saline (75th 24:41.4), Ryley Darnell (78th 24:47.3), Adeline Wilson (93rd 26:25.7), Hannah Denman (96th 27:22.1), Lillian Knudtson (97th 27:44.0), and Nadia Kaczmarz (98th 28:58.4) finished strong for the Rocker squad.

"On the women's side Taylor Bright led the way again with a huge improvement over last year's RMAC meet. Abbie Saline put in a great final 2k as well for her best race of the season," Johnson said. "Our women's team is really young and they've showed that we have a lot of potential to build on but we're not where we want to be yet."