Two top-five finishes for the women and all five scorers in the top 10 for the men highlighted the weekend for the Fighting Bees cross country teams, as they hosted the Fighting Bee Invitational at Crow Creek Park in Bettendorf, Iowa.

This was the Bees' first full-length meet of the 2021 season, with the women running a 5k and the men an 8k. Both the men and women ran with shortened rosters to not overstress their young core of runners.

Emma Duncan followed up her meet win from a week ago with another fantastic effort, finishing as the individual runner up at the Fighting Bee Invitational with a sub-20 5k time of 19:55.

Joining Duncan in the top five was Jess Mendenhall in fifth place, running to a time of 20:21. Kylie Mercier crossed the line at 24-flat to finish in 23rd-place.

Led by senior duo Nolan Rudd (26:56) and Matt Jung (27:20), the St. Ambrose men's team cruised to their second-consecutive meet win. The Bees collected a team total of 30 points, beating out Carl Sandburg College by nine.

Rudd and Jung ran to third and fourth-place finishes, respectively. George Barton finished sixth (27:45), Lucas Creek was seventh (28:03), and Kale Cartee crossed the finish line in 10th (29:23) to round out the scoring for the Fighting Bees.

The Bees pack running was again on display at the Fighting Bee Invitational. Tommy Ashby (30:41), Noah Maske (30:44), and Chris Borschnack (30:52) all finished within 11 seconds of each other to snag 23rd through 25th places overall. Just behind that pack was Danny Parr in 27th (31:10) and Bryan Flentge in 45th (33:49).

The Bees will be back running at full strength at the Grand View Viking Invitational on September 25th in Des Moines, Iowa.