Milwaukee City Wire

The Milwaukee Panthers men's cross country team opened their season at St. Norbert's Tom Barry Invitational on Saturday morning.

The Panthers finished in second place with a score of 40 points, placing three runners in the top 10. Milwaukee finished just behind Green Bay's winning score of 23.

Carter Eckhoff took home second place with a time of 19:14.4 to start what should be an impressive junior season. Sam Schreiber started off the season with a personal best of 19:28.2, securing fifth place. Taking ninth place in the event was Cullen Boyle with a time of 19:53.1.

Making his collegiate debut with Milwaukee, Nathan Powley placed 11th with an impressive time of 19:56.0. Rounding out the scoring for the Panthers was Lucas Picco with a time of 20:06.4 for a 13th-place finish.

"I know they have a chip on their shoulder and are looking to make some noise in this conference," Head Coach Andrew Basler stated. "I think from the results you can see that we're very deep. Once we sheer things up, we're going to have an extremely strong top seven."

Two more Panthers had personal bests: Harper Fahey with a time of 20:26.1 and Trey Meier with a time of 20:42.2.

Basler concluded by saying, "I'm excited at the start of the season and looking forward to getting back to Green Bay next week for the 8k championship distance."

Will Whiteis, Talon Gamez, Zach Moss, Karsten Grundahl, Will Perez, Sam Blascyk, and Dylan Longworth made their debuts for the Panthers.

Milwaukee will be back in action on Friday, Aug. 6 when they travel back to Green Bay for the Phoenix Open hosted by Green Bay at 4:00 p.m.