Courtesy Photo
ACC Runner Teddy Peters (left) and his ACC XC teammates had record-setting day at the Kirtland Firebird Invitational.

One of the Alpena Community College men’s cross country team’s goals this season is to improve each meet. On Friday afternoon, at the Kirtland Firebird Invitational, the Lumberjacks not only improved, they had a record-setting day.

All eight Lumberjacks had season bests, while five had career bests. To top that off, as a team, they ran an average of two minutes and 40 seconds faster per runner than their previous season best.

“Because of the COVID(-19) guidelines this season, I don’t get the race results until I get home from our meets,” ACC coach Mark Jacobs said. “I knew we ran well today, but after I was able to do some analysis and digest the numbers, I was thrilled with the results.”

John Siegert (Ludington) led ACC for the fourth consecutive meet this season with a season best time of 29:34. Siegert was closely followed by Teddy Peters (Onaway), who ran a career best time of 29:44.

Behind Peters were Musa Kubbah (Voinjama, Liberia) 31:06, Nate Robey (Big Rapids) 31:27, Connor Bagnell (Memphis) 31:42, Runi Demirkol (Istanbul, Turkey) 33:48, Duncan Ross (Rogers City) 33:59, and Yuki Nishibashi (Ostu, Japan) 34:56. For Nishibashi, his time was a six-minute improvement over his previous best time.

“I knew our times would be better due to our hard work and the fact that the other 8K courses we have run on this year were extremely difficult,” Jacobs said. “We still have some work to do and need to get our top five guys closer together. I am really liking what I am seeing both in practice and during our meets.”

ACC next travels to Muskegon on Oct. 17 for its last regular season meet before regionals, which will be held Oct. 31 in Lansing.