BUTTE, Mont. – The Montana State University Billings men's and women's cross country teams both collected strong finishes at the Butte Invite hosted by Montana Tech on Thursday, with the Yellowjacket women highlighting the race with historic individual and teams wins.
 
MSUB's women would take first place overall at the meet in a 6K race, finishing with a total of 36 points to edge out second place Carroll College by four points. The win would mark the team's first group victory under head coach Jon Woehl, with MSUB placing three of the top four finishers in the race.
 
Chief among those finishers was sophomore Micah Strong, who collected her first career race win by pacing the field with a time of 24:08.6. Strong would win by 11-and-a-half seconds in just her first race of the year, becoming the first Yellowjacket woman to place first place in a race since Nikki Aiken in 2019, and just the fourth Yellowjacket woman to win a race in the program's GNAC era.
 
Behind Strong in second place would be Ally Coey, who would finish with a time of 24:20.1, improving her season best 6K time by more than 16 seconds from her last race. In fourth place would be Gracyn Rock, who would finish with a time of 25:15.8, improving her season best mark by over a minute. The point finishers for the MSUB women would be rounded out by Adison Carlson, who placed 12^th with a mark of 25:56.7, crushing her previous 6K best time of 26:36.6 set when she was competing at Whitworth University, and Della Sebring, who placed 17^th with a mark of 26:08.5.
 
For the Yellowjacket men, the team would place second overall with a strong race, finishing with 64 points. Logan Milek would continue his run of strong performances with his highest placement yet, taking second overall with a time of 26:37.7. John Achter would finish as the Yellowjackets next best performer, with a PR time of 28:10.9 improving his career best for the second straight week. Mason Gregoire would place shortly behind him in 13^th with a time of 28:17.5, improving on his PR as well. MSUB's top five would be rounded out by Jimmy Reed, who placed 19^th with a time of 28:47.2, and Will Hyatt, whose time of 29:14.0 would be good enough for 23^rd place overall.
 
THE BUZZ: Strong and Milek would be named the Athletes of the Meet… the meet win was the first for the MSUB women since the Yellow Jacket Invite in 2010, hosted by Black Hills State.
 
UP NEXT: The Yellowjackets will compete next in their lone home meet this fall, with both teams scheduled to race at the Yellowjacket/Battlin' Bears Open, co-hosted by MSUB and Rocky Mountain College. The meet will be hosted at Amend Park, with the men's 8K race set for 11 AM, and the women's 6K race scheduled for 11:45 AM. Meet information will be made available on the MSUB men's and women's schedule pages.