Centerville, OH - Despite a solid week of practice, the Grace Bible College cross country teams found themselves a little off pace at Saturday's Cedarville University Invitational. With teams from Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia, the quality of the competition helped the Tigers through the first half of their races; however, they were unable to maintain the pace throughout the remainder of the race.

Head coach Gerry Verwey said, "Today was not our best effort, but there were still many positives. If anything, the team seems more focused now for our next meet in Grand Rapids on Friday because they know they can do better."

In the men's race, Troy Sergey was on pace for a respectable personal best through two and a half miles of his almost five mile race. Sergey finished in 32:24 for the 8k race. Despite this not being near the time he ran last week, it was still more than a minute faster than his performance on the same course last year.

For the women's race, despite lackluster times, the Grace women still placed ahead of Wiberforce University and Central State University among the 13 team field.  Sophomore Kim Buskirk (Blanchard, MI) was the first Tiger to finish in 21:43, followed by sophomore Danielle Davies (Trufant, MI - 25:37), sophomore Diana Peters (Wyoming, MI - 26:08), and sophomore Nat Mercer ( Pahrump, NV - 28:52). Senior Jess Johnson (Allendale, MI - 31:09) rounded out the scoring for the Tigers.

Next Friday, September 22 the Grace cross country team will be hosting "Superhero Night" at its meet with GRCC at Riverside Park in Grand Rapids. Action is scheduled to begin around 3pm with the men's 8k and women's 5k races. Fans are encouraged to dress as their favorite superhero as they come cheer on the cross country runners on a very spectator friendly course.