{"id":2082997,"date":"2025-10-11T01:08:42","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T01:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2082997"},"modified":"2025-10-11T01:08:42","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T01:08:42","slug":"cross-country-wins-royals-challenge-in-north-carolina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/cross-country-wins-royals-challenge-in-north-carolina\/","title":{"rendered":"Cross Country wins Royals Challenge in North Carolina"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"sidearm-story-template-links\" aria-label=\"Story Links\">&#13;<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"hide\">Story Links<\/h3>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n                        &#13;<br \/>\n                    <\/aside>\n<p>                     <strong>CHARLOTTE, N.C. <\/strong>\u2013 The No. 16 Northern Michigan cross country team delivered a statement performance on Friday evening, racing to a first-place finish out of 18 teams at the Royals Challenge hosted by Queens University of Charlotte.<\/p>\n<p>The Wildcats edged out No. 19 Catawba, tallying 39 points to 47 in a tightly contested race filled with nationally-ranked talent.<\/p>\n<p>In the team&#8217;s first 5K race of the season, <dfn><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nmuwildcats.com\/sports\/womens-cross-country\/roster\/madi-szymanski\/7542\" rel=\"smarttag\" rev=\"7542\">Madi Szymanski<\/a><\/dfn> led the charge with a third-place finish in 17:18.7, marking her fourth straight top-10 performance after returning from injury last year. Szymanski&#8217;s time shattered her previous 5K personal best by more than a minute.<\/p>\n<p>Not far behind, <dfn><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nmuwildcats.com\/sports\/womens-cross-country\/roster\/ashley-choponis\/7549\" rel=\"smarttag\" rev=\"7549\">Ashley Choponis<\/a><\/dfn> continued her breakout campaign, finishing fourth in 17:26.3. The freshman standout from Sidney, Michigan, was also the top underclassman among 164 runners.<\/p>\n<p><dfn><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nmuwildcats.com\/sports\/womens-cross-country\/roster\/emma-sweeney\/7541\" rel=\"smarttag\" rev=\"7541\">Emma Sweeney<\/a><\/dfn> rounded out NMU&#8217;s trio of top-10 finishers, clocking 17:40.3 for ninth place, a two-minute improvement from her previous 5K PR in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>The Wildcats&#8217; depth was on full display, with <dfn><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nmuwildcats.com\/sports\/womens-cross-country\/roster\/beverly-harper\/7531\" rel=\"smarttag\" rev=\"7531\">Beverly Harper<\/a><\/dfn> (13th, 17:50.3) and <dfn><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nmuwildcats.com\/sports\/womens-cross-country\/roster\/sophia-potter\/7539\" rel=\"smarttag\" rev=\"7539\">Sophia Potter<\/a><\/dfn> (15th, 17:52.6) rounding out the scoring group. NMU was the only team in the field to place five runners under the 18-minute mark, sealing the victory in impressive fashion.<\/p>\n<p>The Green and Gold kept their momentum rolling with several more strong performances:<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n&#8211; <dfn><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nmuwildcats.com\/sports\/womens-cross-country\/roster\/lamar-gordon\/7529\" rel=\"smarttag\" rev=\"7529\">Lamar Gordon<\/a><\/dfn> &#8211; 22nd (18:03.9)<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n&#8211; Dani VanLente &#8211; 24th (18:07.6)<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n&#8211; <dfn><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nmuwildcats.com\/sports\/womens-cross-country\/roster\/madalyn-agren\/7552\" rel=\"smarttag\" rev=\"7552\">Madalyn Agren<\/a><\/dfn> &#8211; 27th (18:17.8)<\/p>\n<p>Also competing for NMU were <dfn><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nmuwildcats.com\/sports\/womens-cross-country\/roster\/lola-korpi\/7533\" rel=\"smarttag\" rev=\"7533\">Lola Korpi<\/a><\/dfn> (18:35.5), <dfn><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nmuwildcats.com\/sports\/womens-cross-country\/roster\/ella-debruyn\/7527\" rel=\"smarttag\" rev=\"7527\">Ella DeBruyn<\/a><\/dfn> (18:42.4), <dfn><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nmuwildcats.com\/sports\/womens-cross-country\/roster\/maija-maki-warne\/7548\" rel=\"smarttag\" rev=\"7548\">Maija Maki-Warne<\/a><\/dfn> (18:42.7), <dfn><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nmuwildcats.com\/sports\/womens-cross-country\/roster\/celia-wallace\/7546\" rel=\"smarttag\" rev=\"7546\">Celia Wallace<\/a><\/dfn> (18:48.6), and <dfn><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nmuwildcats.com\/sports\/womens-cross-country\/roster\/anya-vansweden\/7544\" rel=\"smarttag\" rev=\"7544\">Anya VanSweden<\/a><\/dfn> (19:15.0).<\/p>\n<p>Sierra Bower (Unattached) won the individual title in 16:40.0, while Madison Clay (Catawba) finished runner-up at 17:15.8.<\/p>\n<p>Friday&#8217;s full results can be found <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/live.tdemingtiming.com\/meets\/57994\/events\/xc\/2142358\"><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">here<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Up Next<\/strong><br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nNMU&#8217;s final regular season race will be the Husky Invitational hosted by Michigan Tech on Friday, October 17, at 4:15 p.m.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source nmuwildcats.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#13; Story Links &#13; &#13; CHARLOTTE, N.C. \u2013 The No. 16 Northern Michigan cross country team delivered a statement performance on Friday evening, racing to a first-place finish out of 18 teams at the Royals Challenge hosted by Queens University of Charlotte. The Wildcats edged out No. 19 Catawba, tallying 39 points to 47 in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2082997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2082997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2082998,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082997\/revisions\/2082998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2082997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2082997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2082997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}