ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. - The NC Wesleyan College men's and women's cross country teams opened their season on Saturday by hosting a cold and wet NCW XC 5K Classic.

The men placed 5th out of 7 teams at the 5K event and third among D-3 schools. Div. II West Liberty University won the men's meet followed by Div. I UNC-Wilmington in second. Methodist and Peace were then 3rd and 4th. Wesleyan finished ahead of conference foes Averett and Pfeiffer. Philip White of WLU won the meet in 15:57. 

Freshman Chris Sielkowski led Wesleyan with a time of 18:47 to place 27th overall while sophomore Philly Barungi waas right behind in 29th at 18:59.

Junior Terenthen Parker then came in 32nd in 19:08 while junior Maleik Small was next in 37th in 19:21. Junior Connor Hayes immediately followed him in 38th in 19:23. Senior Andrew Bowen then followed in 41st in 19:44 while junior Keyonte Williams came in 44th in 20:34. Finally, junior Nick Green finished it up for the Bishops in 48th place in 22:08.

"We are excited to get back to running, as we have not raced since the middle of November 2019, which was at the NCAA Regional Championships," said head coach Marshall Leonard. "Today we had to knock off some rust and get back into the competitive mindset. The course was extremely wet from the constant rain over the past 2 weeks, which created a situation where the athletes were running in mud and large puddles.  It was definitely one for the record books."

The Wesleyan cross country teams will next compete on the road next weekend at 11 AM in Staunton, VA at Mary Baldwin University.