GLASSBORO, N.J. – The No. 4 Haverford College men's cross country team dominated the Inter-Regional Border Battle on Saturday, winning both the championship and open races at Rowan. The Fords put three runners in front of No. 16 Carnegie Mellon's first to easily capture the championship team title by a 29-62 score.
After Rowan's Kevin Veltre was the first runner across the line, Haverford had the next three finishers in Henry Woods (24:52.8), Dylan Gearinger (25:03.0), and Graham Peet (25:05.7). Those three came in after Veltre won the meet with a time of 24:44.5, just over eight seconds ahead of Woods' pace.
Sam McCalpin also turned in a top 10 finish as he crossed the line in the eighth position with a time of 25:08.1. Just a couple seconds behind the sophomore were juniors Ryan Herlihy (25:13.7) and Greg Morgan (25:15.2) as the team's fifth and sixth finishers. The Fords finished with six runners across the line before third place York's top runner came in, while runner-up Carnegie Mellon had just four finishers at that point.
Haverford had a total of nine different runners break the 26 minute mark on Saturday as Matt Willig (25:38.8) and Marcelo Jauregui-Volpe (25:40.3) came through in the 36th and 37th place spots. A 47th place showing from James Stadler (25:48.3) also helped him eclipse the 26 minute mark. Lincoln Satterthwaite completed Haverford's day in the championship race with a time of 26:29.1 to place 82nd in the field of 250 finishers.
The Fords also had a tremendous showing in the open race as they had five of the first six scoring finishers overall to top co-runners-up Johns Hopkins and Rowan by an 18-72 score. Chris Goings (26:41.1) was the first scoring runner across the line as he placed fifth overall. David Watt (26:44.4) was right on his heels in sixth place, while Tyler Fong (26:51.2), James Barker (26:53.1), and Matt Katz (26:54.2) swept the eighth through 10th place positions in the field of 118 entrants.
Men's cross country will enter the championship season on a high note as the Fords have won three of their four meets during the regular season and were the highest finishing Division III team during each of those events. The three-time defending Centennial Conference Champions will look to make it four straight conference titles when they return to competition on Sunday, October 29 at Gettysburg. The Centennial Conference Championship will start with the men's race at 11 a.m.