MONMOUTH, Ore.  – Making his racing debut for the Beacons, highly touted transfer Ben Collins made his presence known right away on Friday, leading Bushnell at the Ask Creek Invitational.
 
Still working their way up to the official collegiate 8000-meter distance, the Beacons competed at six kilometers at the Western Oregon University-hosted meet and took sixth-place.
 
Head Coach Kyle Will said, "Our team raced well today. We didn't place well but we had some solid competition. We train through these races and not for these races. This was a good workout and that is how I look at it. I don't ever put pressure to be at our best at these because we want to be our best in November. It is all part of the process."
 
Collins ran a 20:29.79 in the race to take 30th place in his Beacon debut.  Coach Will said, "Ben had a really strong first 4000 meters and faded a little bit as he is still coming back into race shape. He is ready to turn the corner."
 
Grant Kaminer cleared nearly two minutes off of his time from the team's opening race of the season, coming in 40th at 21:12.78 while Sayer Pescosolido (21:28.19) also ran a huge improvement over the Linfield meet in August, breaking his previous mark by two minutes, 16 seconds as he took 45. Logan Gant was next in 49th (21:51.62) while Wyatt Pepiot rounded out the scoring in 51st (22:06.25), nearly a minute better than last month.
 
Also competing for the Beacons were Wyatt Humphries (54th, 22:19.08), CJ Long (56th, 22:31.93), and Hudson Gerlits (72nd, 26:27.56).
 
Next week the Beacons will face their first 8K of the season at the Cascade Collegiate Conference preview meet, taking place at Rose City Golf Course in Portland.