Mount Mercy Places Fifth Behind Gregoire’s Top-10 Performance

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — The Mount Mercy University men's cross country team recorded a fifth-place team finish at the 2025 Seminole Valley Stampede on Saturday morning at Seminole Valley Park. The Mustangs placed four runners in the top 40 of the 8K field that included NAIA and regional programs.

Noah Gregoire paced Mount Mercy with a 25:04.4 finish, placing seventh overall and leading the team for the third consecutive meet. Gregoire maintained steady splits through the 4K checkpoint and closed with a 4:58 final mile to secure his second top-10 finish of the season.

Ryan Mitchell was next across the line for the Mustangs, placing 13th in 25:19.7. Brady Cortez followed closely in 19th (25:31.5), while Quinn Swift finished 38th (26:00.1). Trey Schulte completed the Mount Mercy scoring five in 51st place with a 26:17.2.

Mount Mercy finished with a team total of 118 points, earning a top-five result among 23 scoring teams. The Mustangs posted a 1-5 split of 1 minute, 37 seconds and averaged 25:56 per runner across their top five.

Also competing for Mount Mercy, Dylan Bledsoe ran 26:33.8 for 64th place, and Jack Stamp finished 83rd in 26:57.0, rounding out the varsity lineup.

The race featured several nationally ranked programs, with Aquinas winning the team title with 64 points, followed by Cornerstone (73), Kansas Wesleyan (93), St. Francis (Ill.) (93), and Mount Mercy (118) in the top five.

The Mustangs executed a conservative opening mile before progressing through the second half of the course, moving from seventh to fifth in team standings over the final two kilometers. Gregoire's top-10 finish marked Mount Mercy's highest individual placement at the Stampede since 2022.

Mount Mercy's team average represented a 49-second improvement from its previous meet, and the squad's compression between the second and fifth runners was its tightest margin of the season.

Mount Mercy returns to action on Oct. 25, traveling to Ashland, Nebraska, for the Blazing Tiger NAIA Classic at the Mahoney State Park.