WINNECONNE, Wis. -- Junior Samuel Gerstenbacher got his first taste of NCAA cross country action on Saturday at Lake Breeze Golf Club. Gerstenbacher took part in his very first NCAA DIII XC Championships and took 83rd for the Elizabethtown College men's cross country team.

Not long after the start of the race, Gerstenbacher and several other competitors around him took a fall that slowed up the early portions of his race. Through the first timing split, he was in 169th out of a 280-man field.

After being 171st at the second split, Gerstenbacher manuevered his way up to 134th by the third and 124th by the fourth. Coming into the final stretch of the 8,000-meter championship race, the Landmark Conference champion was in 104th and hustled his way up to 83rd by the time he crossed the finish line. Gerstenbacher finished in 25:29.7.

North Central (Ill.) won its third straight men's XC championship and 19th overall. North Central College also had the top two individual runners, the first time since 1996 that the feat has been achieved by the national champion.