Zach Haire leads Men's Cross Country at Griak

Falcon Heights, Minn. -- Tommie Cross Country senior Zach Haire cruised to a top 70 finish Friday in a field of 183 runners to lead St. Thomas' efforts in the Division I men's race at the Roy Griak Invite at the University of Minnesota's Bolstad Golf Course.

Coach Pete Wareham's team faced its toughest field of opponents and most difficult course of the season. The Tommies also had a few injured runners not competing, including the team's No. 2 runner senior Colton Halla, a top-90 finisher in this race in 2021.

This year's Griak D-I men's race featured No. 7-ranked Wisconsin, the team champion; No. 28 Michigan State, which placed third; plus 10 other regionally-ranked squads.

Wisconsin (39), California Baptist (70), Michigan State (72) and Colorado State (118) took the top four team spots. Summit League favorite South Dakota State placed eighth, with St. Thomas taking 16th.

Haire moved up throughout the race and clocked 25:26 over 8,000 meters (4.97 miles) for 67th place in a field of 183 runners.

One year earlier, Haire took 65th place on the same Griak course in a time of 25:50 en route to an eventual fourth-place finish in the Summit League Championship race five weeks later.

The next seven finishers for the Tommies were:

Senior Biel Wiel in 95th place (25:54);
Junior Charlie Caven in 103rd place (26:00);
Freshman Caden Nordberg in 137th place (26:30);
Senior Morey Smith in 142nd place (26:36);
Senior Adam McCollor in 155th place (26:54);
Junior Harris Anderson in 171st place (27:36);
Freshman Sean McNiesh in 176th place (28:18).

Did You Know?

Wiel ran nearly a minute faster on Friday than he did in his 2021 Griak race when he clocked 26:52 and placed 144th.

McCollor also had a 39-second time drop from his last Griak race in 2021 when he ran 27:33.

Next Up

St. Thomas will travel to Bethlehem, Pa., for next Friday's Paul Short Run hosted by Lehigh University. Last year's race included 40 teams in the Gold D-I Division, including some of the top teams in the northeast region.

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Players Mentioned

Harris Anderson

Charlie Caven

Zach Haire

Colton Halla

Adam McCollor

Sean McNiesh

Caden Nordberg

Morey Smith

Biel Wiel

University of St. Thomas Athletics