In its first scoring meet of the season, The College of Wooster cross country teams competed in the Otterbein University Invitational at the Lehman Cross Country Course on Saturday morning. The men placed 10th while the women took 11th.
 
First-year Lauren Acker turned heads in her first collegiate 6k event, narrowly missing out on a top-10 finish by less than four-tenths of a second after placing 11th overall in 23:20.70. For the men, senior Joe Ahmann made it back-to-back meets as the Fighting Scots' top finisher, as he finished 43rd in a career-best 8k 27:45.48.
 
Senior Amy Gabrovsek was the women's second harrier for the second consecutive meet, putting together a career-best 6k effort of 26:51.74 to finish 79th. There was some shake-up in the remainder of the scoring spots as junior Reeve Helvoigt, sophomore Eilidh Horn, and senior Sylvia Direnzo rounded out the top five. Helvoigt went 26:30.88 for 84th place, Horn ran 27:12.99 for 92nd place, and Direnzo toed the line for her first collegiate race and finished 109th in 28:41.96.
 
Other scorers for the men were senior Zane DeMercurio, sophomore Basil Keck, sophomore Grant Mentzer, and senior Jack Schuller. DeMercurio placed 75th in 28:20.31 and Keck took 91st in 28:46.53. Mentzer joined Ahmann in the personal-best department with a collegiate-best 29:34.00 for 119th, while Schuller was not far behind in 122nd place in 29:35.71.
 
The Scots' top-seven women included juniors Naomi Kaczor and Celeste Probart in 127th and 130th place, respectively, as Kaczor crossed the line in 30:30.79 and Probart in 31:16.70 in her first collegiate 6k event. Junior Nick Schade and sophomore Andrew Rombach rounded out the top seven for the men. Schade went 30:07.00 for 136th and Rombach went 30:24.08 for 146th.
 
Ohio Northern University took the women's team title with a combined 38 points and Otterbein won the men's team title with 39 points. The University of Mount Union had both individual titles with Savannah Dennison for the women in 21:57.31 and Stephen Ulrich for the men in 25:38.70.
 
Wooster returns to the course on Friday, Sept. 19, for the All-Ohio Intercollegiate Cross Country Challenge at 6:00 p.m., hosted by Cedarville University at the Elvin R. King Cross Country Course.