The NCAA Midwest Regional Cross Country Championships serve as a filter that separates the best teams and runners throughout the region from the not-as-good ones, and, heading into the competition, the Grand Valley State University men’s and women’s cross country teams have consistently sat atop the victor’s podium for almost a decade — the women had won nine straight while the men had won eight straight.

Add one more tally mark to each column — the Lakers continued the tradition this year by securing team titles in Louisville, Ky., Saturday.

Paced by junior Tyler Emmorey’s individual title, the men’s team finished with an average time of 31 minutes, 9.06 seconds, a 40-second advantage over second-place University of Southern Indiana.

“We had a plan to come out and do what we wanted to today and we ran well as a team,” said Emmorey, who finished second to teammate Anthony Witt at the GLIAC conference meet. “Accomplishing our goals – coming out healthy, getting the win and qualifying for nationals – was big.”

Emmorey, who was also last season’s individual champion, finished with a time of 30:58.72, .05 seconds faster than fellow junior teammate Witt’s 30:58.77. The duo’s success was key to the team’s 21 points in the 10 km race.

“Tyler has done a great job working hard every day,” said GVSU head coach Jerry Baltes. “He always keeps the team as the focal point, and by him getting better it helps the team. He and Anthony ran together the whole way, and it could have gone either way – it was a great one-two finish for them.”

Junior Paul Zielinski finished in fourth (31:09.65), junior Jeff Nordquist finished sixth (31:16.24), junior Ryan Toth came in eighth (31:21.92) and freshman Larry Julson wrapped up the top-10 (31:35.44) ahead of senior Simon Nyang, who finished 43rd (32:43.15).

While the men’s team took home its ninth-straight championship, the top-ranked women put together a performance that earned them a 10th-consecutive title. Led by senior Katherine McCarthy’s second-place finish (21:10.70), the Lakers won the 6 km race with 26 points.

The team had to overcome two big holes in their line-up as senior Megan Maceratini and junior Rebecca Winchester were unable to run, and the team responded to the challenge by taking the championship.

“We went out controlled, and we stayed together most of the race,” said McCarthy, who finished second at the GLIAC conference meet. “We didn’t run a few of our top runners, but the people who filled in filled the gaps well. It shows how much depth we have that we can put in our sixth and seventh runners and still have success.”

To complement McCarthy’s second-place finish, the rest of the women ran strong with five runners finishing in the top eight places. Senior Sarah Dugan crossed the finish line in fourth with a time of 21:25.98. Fellow senior Kylen Cieslak finished in fifth (21:29.83) while juniors Julia Nowak (21:41.96) and Jessie Vickers (21:43.32) finished in seventh and eighth, respectively.

Rounding out the Lakers were junior Shaylee Vanderbaan in 12th place (21:52.81 ) and sophomore Monica Kinney in 17th place (22:15.35).

“This is a confidence boost, but we want to focus on Nationals. We need to get everyone healthy and get our top two girls back,” said Dugan, a transfer from Calvin College. “It’s my first year here, so I’m excited to be a part of everything. It’s a great opportunity to run here.”

As the Lakers look ahead to their next task of returning to Louisville in hopes of winning a National Championship on Dec. 4, Baltes said his teams are prepared for what awaits them.

“There are two sides to these things: emotional and physical,” he said. “Getting your hopes and emotions high are exciting when you have a great day, and the physical approach is just overcoming being beaten up by the course and how you come out of a race physically. We kept both in perspective today, so we don’t have to get back up emotionally for Nationals or kill ourselves physically – just want to move forward and be ready two weeks down the road.”

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