BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Haverford College's second-ranked men's cross country team, led by junior Jordan Schilit, raced to a 16th-place finish Friday at the 2011 Paul Short Run, easily outpacing the other Division III school at the meet, sixth-ranked St. Lawrence University which finished 31st.
The Fords registered a team score of 489 points from their top five runners in the eight-kilometer Gold race while D-I Oklahoma, ranked fourth in the country, took the crown with 34 points. Other notable team performances at the meet include 18th-ranked Villanova (fourth place, 177 points), Yale (19th, 565), St. Joseph's (26th, 716), St. Lawrence (31st, 929), Shippensburg (33rd, 944; D-II No. 19), Penn (34th, 987), Lock Haven (39th, 1,072; D-II No. 13) and Temple (44th, 1,367).
Seven of the nation's top-22 D-I programs were part of the 45 teams in the Gold race. Haverford and St. Lawrence were the only D-III institutions participating.
Each of Haverford's five scoring runners posted best times on the 8K course laid out at Lehigh University's Murray H. Goodman Campus. Schilit paced the Fords with a time of 25 minutes, 4 seconds which was 41st of the more than 400 runners.
On Schilit's heels was senior Eric Arnold (25:16) in 61st. Senior Andrew Sturner (87th, 25:28), junior Peter Kissin (161st, 25:50) and sophomore Brian Sokas (164th, 25:50) rounded out the scoring positions for the Fords. Seniors Faraz Sohail (183rd, 25:58) and Tim Schoch (185th, 26:00) were the sixth and seventh runners for Haverford.
In the 8K Open race run earlier in the day, freshman Jeff Duncan was the first Ford to cross the finish line clocking a time of 26:47 to finish 56th. Sophomore Avi Bregman (68th, 26:59) was next for Haverford followed by freshman Joel Christian (69th, 27:01), junior Ethan Haswell (73rd, 27:02) and senior Ben Siqueiros (83rd, 27:10).
Haverford will race its next meet in Princeton, N.J., at the Princeton Invitational on Saturday, Oct. 15.