GENESEO, NY – The Houghton College cross country teams traveled to SUNY Geneseo to compete in the NCAA Regional XC Championships. The regions were realigned this year from 8 to 10, and the Highlanders now compete in the Niagara region. Nearly 40 teams make up this region. It was a cold, rainy, and muddy day for competition. Houghton had raced this course on 10/2 at the Mike Woods Invitational.
 
The men's 8,000m race went off at 11:00am. The race went out quick, but the course quickly became very muddy throughout. Houghton's top five runners were quite spread out, and the team finished in a respectable 15^th place.
 
51^st – Dave Russo, 26:55
69^th – Seth Greene, 27:30
88^th – Dillon Bell, 27:59
96^th – Dylan Beckhorn, 28:15
103^rd – Caleb Kasper, 28:31
 
The women ran 6,000m at 12:00pm. The course was already torn up pretty good, but still went out fairly fast. Four of Houghton's seven eligible runners were not able to compete due to a late week quarantine. Three runners were still able to toe the line.
 
52^nd – Amanda Burrichter, 25:06
58^th – Rachel Domaracki, 25:32
103^rd – Phebe Grant, 27:18
 
Coach Hager commented after the race, "I want to start off saying what a wonderful season we had. Even more so than the historic performances we had at E8, this group meshed well from the beginning, and really was a lot of fun to work with. Today was not our day. We raced like we were in a bit over our head, and lost the battle of bodies. As the head coach, I have to do better next year in preparing the team for this. I'll miss the day to day with this group, greatly."
 
The Highlanders season is complete, and they'll soon begin preparation for their indoor track & field season.