University of Minnesota Athletics
University of Minnesota
Big Ten Championships
Three Gophers Earn All-B1G Honors
10/30/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Cross Country
2016 Big Ten Championships Results
FALCON HEIGHTS, Minn. (GopherSports.com) - Three Gophers earned All-Big Ten accolades on Sunday morning at Les Bolstad Golf Course as the Minnesota men's cross country program finished fourth at the 2016 Big Ten Cross Country Championships with 119 points.
Charlie Lawrence, Matt Welch and Connor Olson were each named Second Team All-Big Ten.
"It was a pretty good performance from our group. Our three All-Big Ten runners really led us well," Minnesota Director of Track & Field and Cross Country Steve Plasencia said. "Overall, I think things started to come together for us today. Of course we'd like to be in the mix for a championship, but we're a little young, and we aren't quite there yet."
On Sunday morning, the Gophers were led by Lawrence - the team captain - as he finished ninth overall with a time of 24:54.9. Welch and Olson followed soon after in 13th and 14th, respectively, with Welch covering the eight-kilometer course in 24:57.1 and Olson crossing the finish line at 24:59.1 in his first appearance at the conference meet.
"Personally, you always want to score as low as you can for the team, and I think I did that today. That was the goal," Lawrence said. "We came out fourth (as a team), it was a good step in the right direction."
Evan Ferlic (39th, 25:30.7) and Derek Wiebke (45th, 25:36.2) closed out the Gophers scoring with Ferlic besting his eight-kilometer personal record in his first Big Ten championships race.
Joey Duerr also set a personal eight-kilometer record at 25:38.3, finishing one spot behind Wiebke in 46th. The Gophers also featured Wayde Hall (69th, 26:08.0), Obsa Ali (72nd, 26:12.1) and Shane Streich (79th, 26:15.6).
The Gophers return to action on Friday, Nov. 4 with the Fall Finale in Collegeville, Minn., before competing at the NCAA Midwest Regional in Iowa City, Iowa on Friday, Nov. 11.
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Players Mentioned
