2016 Centennial Conference Poll
2016 Schedule
HAVERFORD, Pa. – The Haverford men's cross country team will compete for a 24th straight trip to the NCAA Championships in 2016 while hoping for be crowned Centennial Conference champion for the 21st time in 23 years. The run of sustained dominance by the program has expectations high yet again on campus, with another squad that looks poised for success on the national stage.
Last season, the team defended its Centennial Conference crown with five runners placing within the top ten at the conference championship before tackling the Mideast Regional and coming away with the title at that event.
Tom Donnelly, a USTFCCCA Hall of Famer, returns for his 42nd season as men' cross country coach after being named the Centennial Conference and Mideast Region Coach of the Year.
Charlie Marquardt, an NCAA All-American and the Centennial individual champion, became the first Ford to win a cross country All-American certificate since 2013 and also capped an illustrious career with his second consecutive Centennial Conference Runner of the Year and Mideast Region Runner of the Year awards.
The Fords will be without the leadership of Marquardt in 2016, as the Pasadena, Calif. product has joined the ranks of the Alumni after graduating in the spring.
Despite the loss of Marquardt, The Fords will return a bevy of All-Mideast region performers including Jimmy Gorman, Graham Peet, and Henry Woods. Peet returns for his sophomore season after winning Centennial Conference Freshman of the Year while Gorman joins Charlie Hale in captaining the Haverford harriers in 2016.
Haverford has been chosen as the number one team in the Centennial Conference by the conference head coaches in their annual preseason poll. Haverford received seven first-place votes (63 points). The Fords finished six points clear of Johns Hopkins, who was picked second with 57 overall tallies and two first-place votes. Dickinson was selected as the No. 3 team, followed by Swarthmore, Muhlenberg, Gettysburg, Franklin & Marshall, Ursinus and McDaniel.
Donnelly's team gets the season underway at the Alumni Open (Sept. 3) before hosting the Main Line Invitational (Sept. 16) at the Alumni Cross Country Course. The Fords will host the Centennial Conference Championship meet on October 29 at the Alumni Cross Country Course.