Lakers place 3rd at Briggs

LUDINGTON 9/15/12 — The Bear Lake cross country team took a pair of third-place finishes at the Ludington Briggs True Value Invitational on Saturday.

The Laker boys scored 92 points behind runner-up Mona Shores (74) and winner Mason County Central, while the Bear Lake girls scored 49 behind Mona Shores (44) and MCC (37).

Manistee, who ran 24 hours earlier in the Spartan Invitational at Michigan State University, was shorthanded Saturday and ran mostly junior varsity harriers.

The results to the seven-team girls race were muddied when the top three runners were disqualified for inadvertently missing a portion of the course en route to the finish line. Bear Lake’s Keena Gilbert, who originally finished second, was part of that group.

“The top three girls took a wrong turn, missed a loop and got disqualified at the end,” said Lakers coach Tony Shrum. “Keena crossed the line in second, a girl from Mona Shores would have won it, and a girl from Hart would have took third. It was just a tricky situation, and stuff like that sometimes happens.”

Even with the hiccup, the Lakers ran strong as Faith Moerdyk took second in 21:50, followed by teammates McKaya Groenwald (5th, 22:39), Kelly Babcock (7th, 22:45), Alycia Peterson (14th, 23:27), and Alyson Fink (22nd, 24:15).