Lake Superior State's return to Kenosha, WI for the NCAA Division II Midwest Regionals capped off the men's and women's cross country seasons on Saturday.

Head coach Matt Stith said, "We're very happy with the work we put in today and this season. The level of commitment and effort on the race course today was exactly what we try to build our program around. Terrific effort from top to bottom."

Noel Black finished 82nd out of 180 women's runners with a time of 23:02.87 to lead LSSU, while Izzy Yeoman finished shortly after at 23:19.22. The Lakers, as a whole, showed massive improvement within the stacked Midwest region and bumped their team result up several spots from 2024.

"Noel and Izzy have traded off the lead basically every other meet all year," said Stith. "They did exactly as we expected, getting a solid, aggressive start and then maintaining and extending throughout the race. We're very happy with our team results. It's a great improvement over a year and a tougher field than a year ago."

On the men's side, the Midwest Regional was the first time many Laker runners have competed at the 10K NCAA Championships distance. Most races were competed at the 8K distance, a large step up from high school cross country's 5K distance. For the Lakers, a young team with several true freshman, doubling that distance in their first season of competition posed challenges. Stith was extremely pleased with how his team stepped up to the challenge.

"The first time you ever race a 10K, it'll smack you around a little bit, especially on a difficult course with some slippery conditions. The fact that we still had guys who were able to flip the switch and really race hard at the finish – Jeremiah Witt in particular comes to mind, because he had an incredible finish and passed about four guys – it tells me that they handled it as well as we could expect.

"It's very different [than the 8K distance," he added. "Everybody does long runs that exceed 10K by quite a bit, but that's a very different thing than running that distance at race pace and intensity. It's a completely different experience. The degree of difference from the men's 8K to the 10K is surprising for people who haven't done it."

Gavin Guggemos came in at 34:35.03, just ahead of teammate Birk Seagren, who finished at 34:43.22. Not far behind them, Noah Hernandez crossed the finish at 35:12.35, ending a stellar freshman season that saw him climb the Laker ladder regularly. Seagren also had a tremendous campaign in his first year at the college level.

Now the Lakers get some time to relax and rejuvenate before the Indoor Track and Field season begins. Stith said the distance runners will get a couple of weeks off to give their bodies a chance to recuperate from a training cycle that begin early in the summer. But they're already clamoring to return to competition for indoor Track and Field.

"They're already talking about what they want to accomplish. So spirits are high, and I think we're going to roll right into a tremendous track season."

A season of progress for Laker cross country concludes. The work will continue as the Lakers aim to get one day better every day.