The Oakland University cross country teams demonstrated that they are programs on the rise as the school hosted its first ever NCAA Great Lakes Regional Saturday.

The Golden Grizzly women finished 14th out of 33 schools at Katke-Cousins Golf Course with a score of 357, the highest-ever regional finish for the program. The men’s squad placed 16th out of 31 teams with a score of 424.

“I’m very pleased with our performance,” Oakland coach Paul Rice said. “Our women had their best performance ever at a regional. We’ve never been higher than 18th, so that’s a real exciting accomplishment. Cracking the top 15 in our region is really tough to do.”

“The guys finished 16th and we’ve been 16th quite a few times. We’re consistent,” Rice added. “We know we got a good group coming back next year on the men’s side, and we can come back to where we are this year. So it’s been a good day for us.”

Lia Jones led the OU women, finishing 47th at 21:48.5 in the 6K race.

Brittni Hutton placed 58th (21:58.3), Kelsey Carmean 63rd (22:05.8), Erica D’Angelo 84th (22:24.7) and Sara Lieblein 110th (22:54.2) to round out the top finishers for OU.

“It was great to have a big crowd out here,” Jones said. “Oh my God, I could really hear our fans, which was awesome. It was really nice to see all of the other athletic teams out here. It was nice that we knew the course beforehand but you still get caught up in the moment, and you want to go (faster) and you shouldn’t, but that is racing.”

Zack Jones led the men’s squad, by finishing with a time of 31:33.6, good for 48th place in the 10K.

Also scoring for Oakland were Brandon Griffin at 73rd (32:05.5), Pat Cassady at 77th (32:07.6), Steve Marcinkowski at 111th (32:47.4) and Tony Schafer at 115th (32:50.8).

“I ran pretty well today,” Zack Jones said. “The first 5-6K was pretty smooth. After that, it got to be a little more challenging. Overall, it was a great day to race. It was the most exciting race I have ever been in, going around the course and hearing all our fans was overwhelming.”

Rice said that hosting regionals and performing at the level the Grizzlies did speaks to how Oakland is an up-and-coming cross country school.

“We’ve come a long way since moving to Division I,” Rice said. “This is a vision that we have had for almost 10 years, talking about the possibility of doing something like this.

“To put it together, it’s such a great day, and to have thousands of people out here was an unbelievable sight to see,” added Rice. “I’m just really proud of everything everybody has done to put this thing together. It’s not just me. It’s a great team effort and we saw it all come together today.”

No. 5 Wisconsin took the men’s team competition for the eighth consecutive year with 32 points, followed by 12th ranked Indiana (76) and No. 30 Notre Dame (117).

No. 16 Michigan State captured the women’s team title with 80 points, beating out No. 18 Michigan (96) and No. 30 Toledo (130).

Emily MacLeod of Michigan State captured her second consecutive women’s individual championship, finishing in 20:18.8.

Oakland did not qualify to compete in the NCAA Championships next weekend, but after his team’s performance in the Regionals, Rice said he’s optimistic about the future of the program.

“Well, there’s a lot of confidence with this group,” Rice said. “We have a lot of veterans, unfortunately, that are graduating, so we’re losing quite a few (runners). The ones that are coming back have learned a lot from the veterans, and they’re leaving them in good hands. We’re excited to get the group back that we have next year and build on the success of this year.  Just keep moving them forward.”