DE PERE, Wis. – The Bethany Lutheran men's cross country team opened their 2023 season on Saturday morning at St. Norbert College. The meet was won by Wisconsin-Green Bay, with the Vikings coming in ninth with 274 points.

"Really happy with our season opener this year," said Head Coach Michael Dunn. "The vibe with our men's and women's program is definitely going well. The competition was really strong today, but both teams started this season off better than the previous."

The pack running mentality that coach Dunn talked about before the season held true, as all five Vikings finished within 25 spots of each other.

Trace Edmondson improved on his time for last year's event at St. Norbert to lead the group with a 22:32.0, while first-year James Younge had a solid first showing with a 22:44.5. Josiah Hoppe improved on his time from last season as well, finishing over a minute and a half earlier with a 23:44.3. First-years Noah Radloff and Carter Zimmerman rounded out the bunch with times of 24:31.0 and 25:30.6, respectively.

"From the gun, Trace ran his race to a nearly perfect T. In cross, you're measured by where your first five finish and our fifth this year finished nearly a minute ahead of our fifth last year, which is something we can be really happy about. Knowing we were a bit banged up coming into today from training and with one of our athletes shoes breaking at the start of the race, the group ran strong, ran tight, and has a lot that it can take from today and positively build on going forward."

Bethany will next compete at MSU-Moorhead on Friday night at 7:30 p.m.