LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Wilmington College men’s cross country team finished 28th Saturday at the Louisville Classic cross country meet.

This meet was the first large-scale meet for the Fightin’ Quakers this season. The meet featured two NCAA DI teams, nine NCAA DII teams, and 36 from “other divisions,” primarily NCAA DIII teams.

“This was our first big meet of the year and our lack of big meet racing really showed,” WC head coach Ron Combs said. “The team seemed overwhelmed by the environment. Our workouts have shown we are a much better team. We get the opportunity next Friday to go and show that we are much better than how we ran today.”

Each division of runners was further separated into a Gold and Silver group. Wilmington’s runners competed in the Silver, Other Divisions event. Their event fielded 304 runners.

Senior Hunter Stith was the 56th runner to cross the finish line in his event, completing the 8,000-meter run in 27:32.80.

Senior Cameron Erwin finished the race in 28:35.30 for 124th. Freshman Ryan Honkomp finished close behind with a time of 28:41.44 to place 132nd. Gage Egner, a WC junior from Blanchester, finished 187th place with a time of 29:34.68.

Freshman Gage Clemens, sophomore Cameron Phelps and senior Tony Wydra were the last of the Fightin’ Quakers to cross the finish line for points. The trio placed 203rd (29:44.33), 206th (29:54.37), and 211th (30:00.26), respectively.

The Fightin’ Quakers head to the Eagle Invitational in Warrenville, Ill. Friday.