Men's Cross Country Ranked No. 4 in USTFCCCA National Poll

Posted: Oct 04, 2017

HAVERFORD, Pa. – The Haverford men's cross country team has taken over the No. 4 spot in the USTFCCCA National Coaches' Poll, the organization announced in a release on Wednesday afternoon. The Fords earned a total of 260 points, up 52 tallies from a week ago. Haverford also eclipsed Johns Hopkins as the top ranked team in the Mideast Region. The No. 4 national ranking is the highest for the Haverford men's program since the team was ranked No. 3 during the third week of the 2013 season.

The top spot in the national landscape again belongs to North Central (Ill.), as the program took all eight first place votes while SUNY Geneseo is ranked second. Wisconsin-Lacrosse moved up a spot to take the No. 3 position. Haverford climbed five spots to take the No. 4 ranking. Pomona-Pitzer stays static as the fifth ranked team in the nation. RPI, Amherst, Washington (Mo.), Christopher Newport and Calvin round out the top 10 with the latter three representing climbers into the top 10. The biggest overall climber in the poll was Rowan, which climbed 10 spots to No. 23. Johns Hopkins fell 13 spots to No. 16 while Dickinson was the only other Centennial Conference team to be ranked, picking up 30 total votes at No. 34.

At the Paul Short Run Gold Race last week, Haverford took the top spot amongst all Division III teams en-route to a 17th place overall finish. Dylan Gearinger was named Centennial Conference Cross Country Athlete of the Week for the second time this season following the meet. Gearinger was the top Division III finisher in the 8K Gold Race.

Haverford outpaced No. 7 Amherst (25th), No. 9 Christopher Newport (27th), No. 14 Williams (32nd), No. 16 Johns Hopkins (35th), No. 18 Middlebury (36th) and TCNJ (40th) in the process. The Fords also finished ahead of Division I programs such as American, Lehigh, Rutgers and Mississippi State and ranked Division II squads Mount Olive and American International.

Haverford returns to the course on Saturday, October 14 at the Inter-Regional Border Battle. Last season, the meet featured 10 nationally ranked programs, including Haverford and national runner-up SUNY Geneseo.