MANHATTAN, Kan.- The Kansas State men’s and women’s cross country teams took home second place at the JK Gold Classic Saturday in Wichita, Kan. The Wildcat men tallied 44 points, while first place Wichita State ended the day with 29 points. The Wichita State women finished first, as the second place Wildcats totaled 46 points.

Senior Christian Smith led the way for the K-State men, placing second overall with a time of 22:02.24. Following close behind was freshman Alex Umberger, who finished strong, bringing home a fourth-place finish in his first collegiate race. Considering the racing conditions, coach Michael Smith was pleased with the effort.

“Our plan to deal with the heat and humidity today was to run a conservative race early on, and then catch the field towards the later part of the race. For the most part, that’s what we did. We just couldn’t catch everybody.”

Other notable finishes for the K-State men include back-to-back tenth and 11th place finishes by freshmen Danny Schneider and Ben Delay.

The top female runner for the Wildcats was sophomore Stephanie Lavin who turned in a 19:30.71 time on the 5K course, and a fifth-place finish. Under better racing conditions, coach Smith said that Lavin possibly could have broke into the top three. Along with Lavin, freshman Jana Gwinn stayed with the lead pack for most of the race, finishing eighth in her first race as a Wildcat. 

Also, sophomore Morgan Bonds ran a solid race turning in a tenth place finish for the Wildcat women.

Overall, Smith said that his teams completed their goals for the day.

“Our goal today was to get a race under our belts. We ran good races today, but we still have some work to do. Most importantly, we’re still healthy and can look down the road to next week.”

The Wildcats will return home this week to host the K-State / KU Dual on Friday, Sept. 9 at Warner Park in Manhattan. Races begin at 6:30 p.m.