Ben Orvold earned a 9th Place finish at Saturday's University of Minnesota Roy Griak Invitational DII Maroon Race.  Orvold covered the rolling 8000m Les Bolstad Golf Course in a time of 26:10.  The UWP men placed 14th as a team, with a total of 337 points, in the field of 20 Division II, NAIA, and Canadian schools.
 
Alex Mena (90th, 27:59), Dustin Baldwin (98th, 28:06), Phil Simac (129th, 28:42), Bryan McLoone (149th, 29:08), Matt Vidas (152nd, 29:20), and Robert Meyers (153rd, 29:20) competed for the Rangers.  There were a total of 239 runners in the field.
 
Southwest Baptist (MO) won the meet with 61 points over runner-up Concordia (NE) which scored 86 points.
 
Michael Pierce of Southwest Baptist was the individual winner with a time of 25:23.
 
Orvold ran a strong race, working his way from 54th place at the 1km mark and 27th place at the halfway point.  The remainder of the UWP team also moved through the field during the race working past an average of 40 runners per athlete over the second 4km of the race.
 
Coach Mike De Witt commented: "Ben Orvold did a very nice job of controlling his racing efforts early, something he has been improving on since his freshman year.  He ran a very even split race.  The remainder of the team worked well together as much as they could. The course has a lot of turns and short hills and combined with a big field, it is hard to keep teammates in sight.  We are making very good progress."

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