Flathead product Manning wins Frontier cross country
Nov. 5—GREAT FALLS — Montana Tech's Carlin Manning won the individual title at the Frontier Conference Cross Country Championships at the Hickory Farm Golf Course Friday, helping the Orediggers to second place.
Tech was second to Carroll College in both the men's and women's team standings: Meanwhile Manning, a fourth-year junior out of Flathead High, gave the Diggers their first individual women's conference champion.
She won the race by 24 seconds, finishing with a time of 22 minutes and 56.0 seconds.
Teammate Taleigh Adrian took sixth place with a time of 24:09.6 and Alyssa Jany finished in 10th with a time of 24:22.1.
"I'm extremely proud of Carlin," Tech coach Zach Kughn said. "She has worked so hard and developed so much and none of it has been by accident. She deserved this big win today.
"She hasn't lost to a Frontier Conference runner all season. She will also go down in school history as being the first Montana Tech athlete to win a Frontier Conference Championship in cross country. Today was her day."
The Saints posted a score of 36 and the Orediggers finished with 45 points. Rocky Mountain took third with 56 points. It was the fourth straight Frontier title for Carroll.
The Saints scored 38 points to win the men's race for the third straight year and the Oredigger finished with 41. Rocky Mountain took third with 49 points.
The NAIA National Championships are up next. Manning automatically qualifies for the race and the women will have to wait for the at-large bid ranked No. 20 in the nation. The men's team is ranked No. 16 in the NAIA and will also wait for the championship announcement.
"We still had some great performances and I'm proud of the way we competed. Many people did better than expectations so we can't be too disappointed," Kughn said. "However, our bar is set at winning, so it stings a bit. We still have things to work on and we are fired up to get redemption on Carroll and show the rest of the NAIA what we can do at the national championships in two weeks."
But Manning? She's a sure thing.
"She was on the original team in 2020," Kughn said. "Her conference finishes have gone from 24th to 12th to 5th to winning it all. Incredible. That's an Oredigger."
Among the All-Frontier runners was Montana Western's Brant Heiner, a sophomore out of Ronan. He finished 10th.
Another Ronan runner, freshman Olivia Heiner, was all-Frontier with a ninth-place finish on the women's side. In seventh was Carroll's Hannah Sempt, a sophomore out of Columbia Falls.
