Courtesy Photo The Alpena Community College cross country team competes at Jackson College Jets Classic on Saturday.

While running in their third meet of the season, the Alpena Community College men’s cross country team is exactly where it needs to be at mid-season; a team that is continues to get better each week.

Despite an extremely difficult course and mid-80 degree temperatures, the Lumberjacks jumped up in the conference rankings at Jackson College Jets Classic on Saturday.

“Two of our three races have been on courses that Alpena has never run on over the past eight years, so we really didn’t know what to expect. I’ve been to Jackson Michigan a thousand times before and didn’t know there were hills there. Today I think we found all of them,” ACC coach Mark Jacobs said. “Since we ran against the same teams that we ran against three weeks ago at St. Clair, we focused on moving up in individual places. Every single guy improved placement from our first meet. John Siegert, (Ludington) who has been our number one man, placed 27th at St. Clair, today he finished ninth overall, a jump which is unheard of, especially running against the same guys. Hard work is paying off.”

Behind Siegert were Teddy Peters (Onaway) who cracked the top 30 with a 29th place finish, Musa Kubbah (Voinjama, Liberia) 31st place, Nate Robey (Big Rapids) 40th place, Runi Demirkol (Istanbul, Turkey) 44th place, Connor Bagnell (Memphis) 45th place and Duncan Ross (Rogers City) 61st place.

The Lumberjacks travel on Friday to Grayling to run at the Kirtland Firebird Invitational.