Courtesy Photo Alpena Community College XC runner Eli “Chip” Allen led the Lumberjacks Saturday at the Ferris State Ray Helsing Invitational.

ALPENA — Running in its first 8K race of the year, the Alpena Community College cross country team got some outstanding performances Saturday at Ferris State University during the Ray Helsing Invitational.

“Comparing past team performances on this course, this team is right up with the best teams that we’ve had here at ACC,” ACC coach Mark Jacobs said. “Our top focus areas right now are to not start out so fast while working on pacing and closing our time gap between our top five guys.

Eli “Chip” Allen (Alpena) running his first ever 8K, led Alpena with a time 29.55.

“Chip was not happy about his 5k last week and he took his intensity up a notch in practice this week and it definitely paid off for him”, Jacobs said.

Following Allen were Colin Sheahan (Livonia) 29:59, Matt Wilbert (Rogers City) 30:40, Ty Kailing (Reed City) 30:58, Jacob Kochanski (Alpena) 32:51, Calvin Hibbler (Livonia) 33:31, Benedikt Purat (Novi) 33:36 and Matt Mundy (Sault Ste. Marie).

“We run our first conference race next Friday in Grand Rapids. This race will let us know where we currently stand and what we need to do to reach our season goals,” Jacobs added.

GIRLS SWIMMING

Alpena takes 7th at Rice Invite

WEST BRANCH –Alpena took seventh place in the Stephanie Rice Memorial Invitational on Saturday. The team is working hard and improving their times significantly. High scorers were junior Sarah Rabbideau, freshman Tryst Bukowiecki and senior Hannah McConnell.

Alpena’s next meet will be Tuesday at home against Caro at 5 p.m.

CROSS COUNTRY

Wildcats compete in Northwood Invitational

MIDLAND — The Alpena High School cross country team traveled to Northwood University on Saturday to compete in the highly competitive Northwood Invitational.

The Alpena Wildcat women placed sixth out of the 15 teams entered. The scoring five runners for the women were Emma Dickins in 19th place, Sam Zolnierek in 33rd, Izzy Szymanski 44th, Elizabeth Barnhill, 53rd, and Amelia Roznowski, 54th. Lexi Gembel, 115th and Maddie Linton 116th were 6th and 7th in for the team.

For the boys, the top 5 were Kenan Knight in 42nd, Austin Rienhardt was 64th, Hayden Bacchus placed 75th, Braeden Mathis was 93rd, and Thurston Imhoff placed 99th. Austin Lasagna in 108th and Joel Kaiser 166th finished in 6th and 7th place respectively for Alpena. The boys finished 14th out of 17 teams.

Alpena is back in action on Friday at Michigan State University for the Spartan Invitational.

FOOTBALL

St. Ignace 42, Alcona 24

LINCOLN — The Alcona High School football team wasn’t able to get past some mistakes Friday and lost 42-24 to St. Ignace at home.

The Tigers (2-1) were led defensively by the play of Collin Walker and Evan Borsvold, who had nine and eight tackles respectively.

The offense was led by Jeremiah Bullis, who found the end zone three times. Garrett Somers had 125 yards rushing and 148 yards through the air.

The Tigers play at Hillman this week.