CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

SEATTLE—Behind the strength of four men and three women in the top 10 the Concordia University cross country teams took home a pair of team titles at the Cascade Collegiate Conference Preview meet held at Lincoln Park on Saturday.

The Concordia men, ranked No. 15 in the NAIA, scored a meet-low 41 points to outpace runner-up Seattle University by 20 points. Five back, the University of British Columbia placed third out of the six-team field with 66 points.

The Concordia women, ranked No. 28 according to the latest NAIA poll, recorded an event-low 53 points to edge UBC by five points. Evergreen State placed third with 66 points.

The Cavs scored four straight positions with Chris Grever, Martin Romero-Clark, Eric Burck and Jessy Brown claiming the 3-4-5-6 slots. Grever covered the 8,000-meter course in 25 minutes, 58.54 seconds to cross as the team’s No. 1 runner, three seconds ahead of Romero-Clark’s 26:01.63.

Whatcom Community College’s Josh Simpson took the individual title with a 25:30.23, defeating Hassan Khalif, competing for Club Cav, by roughly 40 meters.

The men were in the position to put an ever greater margin in the team race but for a freak accident on the course as Charles Cummings, running in the top pack, was attacked by a loose dog with a little more than a mile remaining in the race.

“I’ve never seen anything like this during a race,” Concordia head coach Randy Dalzell said. “We will see how he is doing as the week progresses, but he will probably need take some time off.”

Cummings was immediately taken to the hospital and received medical attention for puncture wounds.

The Cavalier women were headed by Linsie Michels’ eight-place overall finish and third-place result towards the team standings after touring the 5,000-meter course in 18:09.06. Next to break the line, CU’s Andria Scheese followed with an 18:15.67.

“The women ran unbelievably,” Dalzell said. “Lauren (Moran) and Samantha (Robert) ran huge personal records for us and gave us a great gap with our top runners. They ran an almost perfect race today.”