WHEATON, Ill. - The Ripon Red Hawk men's and women's cross country teams returned to action on Saturday at St. James Farm Forest Preserve in suburban Chicago at the Gill Dodds Invitational, hosted by Wheaton College. The event featured 18 women's teams and 17 men's squads, and the Red Hawks posted the eighth best team scores on both sides.

In a very strong field, the Ripon men tallied 218 points and finished 15 points behind the hosts from Wheaton College, while on the women's side, the Red Hawks were only five points behind Illinois Wesleyan University. 

Sam Fortner (26:47.6) paced the 16 Red Hawk men in the event, as he grabbed a 35th place finish in the field of 231 runners. He was followed to the line by a quintet of Ripon athletes who all finished within 51 seconds of each other - Jonah Decleene (27:00.4), Christian Kuwaye (27:04.7), Nico Martinez-Ortiz (27:23.9), Rainier Villanueva (27:46.7), and David Potter (27:50.9). No Ripon runner who was assigned points finished outside the top 68 in the event.

The men's race was won by Washington University of St. Louis (Mo.), who also claimed the individual win with Cullen Capuano.

On the women's side of the ledger, Mikayla Flyte (23:13.5) grabbed a top-25 finish and led the Red Hawks to a total of 239 points. Ali Denamur (24:20.1) also finished in the top 50 in the field of 234 runners, and the last five Ripon athletes assigned points in the event - Isabelle Willett (25:09.2), Grace Engebretson (25:12.2), Jenny Cortes (25:17.7), Natalie Pakosz (25:32.4), and Angela Mosconi (25:33.6) all crossed the line within 25 seconds and 12 places of each other. 

The race was won by the University of Chicago and Lucy Groothuis (22:01.4). 

The Red Hawks will return to action one week from Saturday when they head to Platteville, Wisconsin to take part in the UW-Platteville Gender Equity Invitational.