SOUTH BEND – The freshman tandem of Nathan Lane and Tyler Houvener led Grace’s men’s cross country team to fourth place at the Bethel Invitational on Friday.

Lane had a personal-record time of 26:06 to finish sixth individually, and Houvener shattered his previous PR by 50 seconds to take seventh place at 26:12.

Brandon Smith (27:25), Collin Chupp (27:45) and Austin Yoder (28:47) completed the top five for Grace. Tim Drew (29:00) also ran well.

Katelyn McCullough’s 11th-place finish helped the women’s team to seventh place out of 13 squads. McCullough ran her fastest career race in 19:18, and several other women had season-best times as well.

Megan Fast (20:21), Alexis Nelson (20:45), Creigh Ogle (20:48) and Emma Mitchell (20:51) rounded out the top five runners for the women. Sarah Hoff in 20:58 and McCalah Mast in 21:01 also posted solid times.

“I think nine of the ladies ran season-best times, so I’m very pleased with the effort. The exciting thing is that I know we can do even better, so I am looking forward to the rest of the season,” said Grace head coach Jeff Raymond. “Nathan and Tyler simply ran awesome races for the men. Those are two of the top four times at Grace in at least the last seven to eight years. The other guys ran solid races. Overall, this is our best team time of the year and maybe our best team time in the last five years.  Just like the women, though, I know they still have more in them.”

Grace has one final tuneup race before the Crossroads League Championships on Nov. 8. The Lancers will run in the Great Lakes Challenge in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Oct. 25.