BEREA – Competing without its top two runners, the Wilmington College men’s cross country team placed eighth out of nine teams Saturday in the Ohio Athletic Conference cross country championships.

“We were missing our No. 2 man coming into the race because of an injury and our top male runner dropped out of the race because of an injury,” said Wilmington head coach Ron Combs. “We were just not able to recover from that. It’s disappointing because we had showed some really good progress at times this year. We are a much better team than we showed today. We are young, but we have a lot of guys who have to learn how to compete in championship meets.”

Freshman Rick Pride (Mount Orab, OH/Western Brown) was the first Wilmington runner to complete the course, placing 40th (27:42.3), while senior Dominic King (Bettsville, OH/Bettsville) was next, placing 47th (28:01.9).

Freshman Gage Egner (Blanchester, OH/Blanchester) was the third runner to finish, placing 48th (28:04.3). Freshman Matt Baker (Liberty Center, OH/Liberty Center) placed 55th (28:56.7) and the Wilmington scoring was rounded out by sophomore Tony Wydra (Miamisburg, OH/Miamisburg), who recorded a 57th place finish (29:20.1).

It’s the final team race for the Fightin’ Quakers, although a couple of runners will compete in the Great Lakes Regional race Nov. 14.