St. Bonifacius, Minn. – Teams from St. Kate's, UW-Superior, North Central, Gustavus, Northwestern (Minn.), and Northland joined the Crown men's and women's cross country teams on campus for the Crown invite.  The event to kick-off the season is a bit shorter than meets later in the year, with the women covering five kilometers and the men racing six kilometers.

On the women's side, Gustavus won the team score while Crown's Abby Pausch was the top home finisher, racing to a sixth place finish in a time of 21:26.04.  Crown's other female finisher was Greta Greniger who finished 35^th in a time of 26:59.32.

The Crown men finished in third as a team, highlighted by a second place overall finish for Jeremiah VanAcker.  The Crown junior was the top collegiate finisher as the race's winner was an unattached post-college runner (last season's MIAC champion, Tom Sederquist).  VanAcker covered the course in 20:13.95, the fastest ever time for a collegiate runner in this race. 

Austin Carlson finished 13^th overall in a time of 21:49.61, second best for the Polars while the team score was rounded out by Josh Hagen, Michael Gregoria, and Ethan Safford. 

The teams return to the course in a couple of weeks on September 17^th at St. Olaf.