Waseca, MN - The Martin Luther College women's cross country team ran in their first meet of the 2024 season at the Finanger Invite on Friday night. The women had a nice showing and finished third (92 points) in the team rankings against some tough competition including Gustavus (1st, 30 points) and Luther (2nd, 37 points). 

Freshman runner Jemimah Habben had a strong start to her collegiate career and posted a time of 20:43.1 in the 5K race, which was good enough for sixth overall out of 71 runners from across six schools. Senior Katelyn Mensching secured another top-20 finish and had the second-fastest time for an MLC runner, coming in at 21:25.0 (16th overall).

Senior Hope Sulzle nabbed the 28th overall spot after a mark of 22:30.7. At the same time, Micaiah Wagner earned 38th from her performance of 23:17.7. In addition to those four MLC runners, the Knights also had another three individuals place inside the top 50, contributing to their third-place ranking as a team. Among those three were Maya Habben (42nd, 23:53.2), Liberty VanDenHeuvel (44th, 23:53.9), and Abbee Olsen (49th, 24:32.9).

Finanger Invite Full Women's Results

Up next for the Knights is a meet next Saturday, September 14 at 11 a.m. hosted by UW-Platteville.