The men’s cross-country team followed up on last weekend’s resounding defeat of Harvard with a 20th place finish in the New England Championships this Friday.
Providence won the race with 25 points, with Boston College finishing a distant second with 159 points. Yale finished with 519 points.
Points are awarded according to the finish of the team’s top five runners. The team with the fewest points wins the meet.
Friar Martin Fagan won the race with teammates Dylan Wykes and Pat Moulton finishing second and third, respectively. Fagan had a winning time of 24:20.
The field included 27 teams, but the Bulldogs’ finish was deceptively strong. Yale rested its top ten runners this weekend in preparation for the NCAA Pre-Nationals next week.
“Essentially we only took the healthy runners on our squad outside of our top ten,” Brian Hanak ’07 said. “This just shows how impressive our program has become, that even without our top ten, we can compete with some of the best varsity teams in New England.”
Out of the five Elis who raced at Franklin Park in Boston this weekend, Tadhg O’Callaghan ’08 had the best time. He clocked in at 25:45, a pace of 5:14 per mile on the 4.95 mile course, and finished 40th overall.
Hanak ran most of the race with O’Callaghan and finished at 26:01, good for 60th in the tournament.
“Franklin Park’s a pretty familiar course for us,” Hanak said. “We competed there last week, so we already knew our way around pretty well. We had a good plan for the race.”
With a time of 26:25, Rolando Garcia ’08 was the next Bulldog to cross the finish line. He placed 84th overall.
Out of the two remaining Yalies, Erik Brown ’06 finished at 26:39 and Eric Kerchberger ’08 clocked in at 28:42.
Garcia felt that he and his teammates all ran strong races.
“The team did very, very well,” Garcia said. “We all ran some of the best races of the year. I think we did an excellent job.”
The Bulldogs are now ranked third in the United States Cross Country Coaches Association regional Northeast rankings. They will travel to Terre Haute, Indiana to compete in the NCAA Pre-Nationals next Saturday.
“We hope to have a great showing against the best teams in the country at Pre-Nationals on October 16,” captain Lucas Meyer ’05 said.
After the Pre-Nationals, the Bulldogs’ next big race is the Heptagonal Championships on October 29 in New York.
“Our main goal this season is to win the Heps at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx,” Meyer said.
Brown echoed his captain’s sentiments about the team’s goals for the Heptagonals.
“The goal is to take first there,” Brown said. “We are looking for good things. If everyone is running well, that should be good enough to get us first.”
The Bulldogs also hope to qualify for the NCAA Championships, which will take place on November 11 in Terre Haute.