COLFAX, Wis. – Top-five finishes from senior Will Kelly and junior Andrew Skemp spurred the No. 13-ranked St. Olaf College men's cross country team to a second-place finish at the 30-team Blugold Invitational on Friday at Whitetail Golf Course.

Kelly was the individual runner-up and Skemp finished fifth for St. Olaf, which had all of its five scorers place in the top 20 to take second in the team standings with 57 points. Fourth-ranked UW-Whitewater, which had five top-10 finishers, took home the team title with 28 points, with the Oles finishing well ahead of third-ranked UW-La Crosse (141), which had its top runners competing at a different meet.

Kelly trailed only Christian Patzka of UW-Whitewater – last season's national runner-up – in the field of 200 finishers with a time of 24:38.70, trailing the Warhawk All-American by 7.7 seconds. The time was the third-fastest 8K time of Kelly's career, trailing only his times from last year's Connecticut College Invitational (24:24.9) and the NCAA Division III North Region Championships (24:37.3).

Skemp turned in the second-fastest 8K time of his career by crossing the line in fifth in 25:04.2, trailing a trio of All-Americans from last season and reigning Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) champion Mohammed Bati of Augsburg University. Like Kelly, Skemp was in the top-five runners at each of the timing intervals in the race.

Junior Sean Hartney made it three Oles in the top 15 by running a personal-best 8K time of 25:30.7 to place 14th and break his previous PR by nearly 20 seconds. Sophomore Kevin Turlington clocked in with the second-fastest 8K time of his career in 17th (25:34.50), while senior David Lynn was eight seconds shy of his PR in 19th (25:36.5) to give St. Olaf five of the top-20 finishers.

Sophomores Jack Deaver and Gael Manzur Strandlund both shattered their previous personal-best 8K times by over 15 seconds in 25th (25:49.1) and 33rd (25:54.3), respectively, and senior Anders Cote was right behind Manzur Strandlund in 34th (25:55.5).

St. Olaf is off next weekend before running in the Jim Drews Invitational on Saturday, Oct. 14 in West Salem, Wis.