News

The cross country season is underway for the Montcalm Community College Centurions as they competed at the Ray Helsing Invitational in Big Rapids, Saturday, Sept. 12.  

MCC competed with six female runners and two male runners with other teams such as Ferris State and Grand Valley State University’s track club.  

In the women’s 5K, freshman Shelly Zimmerman (Cedar Springs, Mich.) led the team, finishing in 16th place with a time of 23 minutes, 25.6 seconds. She was followed by teammates Joslyn Dickman (Alma, Mich.), 25.29.43; Karly Fisk (Sand Lake, Mich.), 26:48.47; and Logan Trygstad (Sheridan, Michigan), 30:54.56. Two other MCC runners did not finish.  

Ferris State dominated the top 12 with Olivia Van Denend winning the race with a time of 19:01.36. Former MCC cross country athlete Abigail Davis (Vestaburg, Mich.), who is now with Ferris State, finished fourth, with a time of 20:09.77. 

On the men’s side, MCC freshman Jeryn Frisbie (Belding, Mich.) finished 23rd with a time of 16:52.04 in the 5K race. MCC’s other freshman runner, Elijah Quigley (Greenville, Mich.) finished in 39th place with a time of 19:54.15.  

Hayden Gould, of Ferris State, won the race, finishing with a time of 15:51.16. 

With another meet this Friday, at the Lansing Community College Invitational, Centurions Head Coach Nate “Q” Van Holten said his runners will have to regroup quickly after what he calls a not-so-clean turnout at the Helsing Invitational. 

“It was rougher than I had hoped, but overall, we were OK,” Van Holten said. 

Van Holten was most impressed with Zimmerman’s run, which she bested her personal record time by more than a minute.  

“She did that on a day when people just weren’t running fast,” Van Holten said. 

Zimmerman said the PR performance was the product of a lot of hard work before the season began. 

“I got my PR because of the amount of time I put into running over the summer,” she said. “The hundreds of miles I put in definitely made a huge impact on my time compared to when I ran for Cedar Springs.” 

Getting a personal record right out of the gate has Zimmerman setting her sights high this season. 

“It makes me extremely excited to see how much faster I can get later on in the season because shaving off time right in the beginning takes a lot of dedication in summer training.” 

Van Holten pointed out that Frisbie’s time was the best he had done in his whole career in cross country, which he was impressed with. 

From what he saw at the first meet, Van Holten believes there is a lot of improvement to be had for both his teams. 

“We need to build up more endurance and I’d like to see better toughness out of them,” he said. “For this next meet, we’re going to have to just go out there and see what happens.  

The Lansing CC Invitational begins at 11:45 a.m.