ALLENDALE, MICH. – The Grand Valley State Lakers head to East Lansing, Mich. to compete in the Spartan Invitational on Friday, Sept. 16^th  after being ranked No. 1 in the Regional Poll and No. 2 (women) & No. 3 (men) in the Coaches' Poll earlier this week. GVSU is coming off a second and fourth place finish after competing in the Knight Invite last weekend (Saturday, Sept. 10^th).
 
Last year at the Spartan Invitational, The Lakers finished with a total of twelve runners placing in the Top 20 and five of those finishing in the Top 10, awarding GVSU a men's first place and a women's second place finish. 
 
The men's team ended with a score of 35 team points finishing in front of Michigan State (51 points), Youngstown St. (103 points) and Toledo (161 points). The women finished with 73 team points falling behind Michigan State (36 points) but beating Toledo (76 points), U. of Chicago (141 points) and Youngstown St. (176 points). 
 
Grand Valley State will be traveling with a total of forty-three runners this weekend, twelve of those who finished in the top 20 at last year's Spartan Invitational. This includes; Tanner Chada who finished second (24:20.6), Caleb Futter in eighth (25:16.3), Klaudia O'Malley in twelfth (22:18.7), Andrew Hylen in thirteenth (25:25.4), Sarah May in seventeenth (22:29.7) and Natalie Graber in twentieth (22:33.2). 
 
Head Coach, Jerry Baltes stated, "We will get a better gage of where we are at, training has been going really really well… and I'm excited to get everyone else out there and see where we are at". 

The Spartan Invitational will begin at 11:00am with the women's 6k race followed by the men's 8k race starting at 11:40am. Results will be posted on Twitter @GVSUXCTF and to TFRRS once the meet is concluded or visit RaceResults for live results.