HOUGHTON, Mich. – Freshman #Kasey Bacso# (Fr.-Plymouth, Minn./Wayzata) struggled slightly to find top race form through the middle of the season after a stellar start to the year, but at the most important classic race of the year, he posted his top finish in conference competition to become the program's first freshman to earn all NCAA Regional honors in the men's 10km classic.

Michigan Tech's Oskar Lund won the NCAA Regional title in a time of 29:43.5 seconds. Northern Michigan's Chris Bowler finished 15.4 seconds back in second while teammate, George Cartwright finished third in 29:59.2.

Bacso's fell two-tenths of a second out of ninth in a time of 30:36.9 seconds to lead the Saints. Juniors #Waylon Manske# (Jr.-Bemidji, Minn.) and #Mason Bacso# (Jr.-Plymouth, Minn./Wayzata) finished 14th and 17th to round out the Saints scoring. The Saints finished fourth on the day.

“We had a much better classic day this weekend compared to last weekend,” said Saints head coach Chad Salmela. “It was nice to see Kasey get another good race under his belt at such a big race, and the rest of the team skied very solidly. I think we could see some pretty big performances tomorrow in freestyle.”

The Saints end the regular season tomorrow with the 15km mass start freestyle.

NCAA Central Region Championships
Women's 5km Classic
Houghton, MI
1 Lund , Oskar MTU 0:29:43.5
2 Bowler , Chris NMU 0:29:58.9
3 Cartwright , George NMU 0:29:59.2
4 Kornfield , Tyler UAF 0:30:01.4
5 Brabbit , Jens GAC 0:30:18.0
6 Parry , John UAF 0:30:20.5
7 Lang , Jesse MTU 0:30:29.1
8 Cutts , Kevin NMU 0:30:32.4
9 Smith , Jesse MTU 0:30:36.7
10 Bacso , Kasey CSS 0:30:36.9
14 Manske , Waylon CSS 0:31:09.2
17 Bacso , Mason CSS 0:31:21.6
23 Hecker , Jeremy CSS 0:32:12.6
27 Wessling , John CSS 0:32:45.7
31 Hupperts , Stefan CSS 0:32:56.0
35 Wright , Ryan CSS 0:33:10.4
37 Nistler , Matt CSS 0:33:19.2

Team Scores
1 NMU 29 28 23 80
2 MTU 30 24 22 76
3 UAF 27 25 20 72
4 CSS 21 18 17 56
5 GAC 26 16 12 54
6 SJU 19 15 14 48
7 STO 13 11 7 31
8 UWGB 10 9 8 27