In their second race of the season at the Fanshawe Invitational, the Mohawk Mountaineers women's cross country team once again placed third overall – a point shy of second – while the men improved to a fourth place finish and were only a point away from a team medal.

"I'm impressed," said head coach David Hopton following the races this past Saturday. "I think silver on women's side and bronze on the men's side would have exceeded our expectations, and we were one point away from achieving both."

Mohawk has narrowed in on a team strategy to follow in the early races to start the year and leading up to the OCAA Championships, set to take place Oct. 29.

"The team has been disciplined in our race tactics and looked like an experienced squad out there, even though many are pretty fresh to the competitive world," Hopton said.

Hopton did add that there's room for improvement.

"We are close to where we want to be, but definitely not satisfied," said the second-year coach. "We are going to need to stay healthy and put in the best month of training this group has ever done to achieve that double-podium at OCAAs we're after."

Ava Snyder (Burlington, ON) placed third in the women's 6km race, which was one of the first individual medals the Mountaineers program has seen in a while. Snyder's time of 23:46 was a third minute improvement from her previous race.

Fourth-year runner Ashley Lof (Beamsville, ON) continued to be a top-10 runner in the province, finishing seventh with a time of 24:42 – just under four minutes better than the race a week ago.

"Ashley is running incredibly well right now and is getting faster every week," Hopton said.

Matias Tessel (Guelph, ON) once again led the men's team with a 11^th place finish and time of 27:31. It was also a three-minute improvement from last week.

Will Summers (Hamilton, ON) placed 14^th with a 28:02 time and Cody Beggs (Belmont, ON) was 18^th finishing at 29:13. First-year Tyler Karl (Collingwood, ON) was a standout going from a 31^st place finish last week to 22^nd this week in a stronger field.

The Mountaineers will now gear up for their final race at the Centennial Invitational on Oct. 15 before the OCAA Championships.

Women's Results

Men's Results

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