Full Centennial Conference Preseason Poll
HAVERFORD, Pa. – The men's cross country coaches of the Centennial Conference have picked Haverford to win its fifth straight Centennial Conference title, the conference office announced today. Haverford received 64 total voting points and all eight possible first-place votes. Coaches were not allowed to vote for their own team.
Johns Hopkins was selected second with one first place vote and 57 total voting points. Dickinson was tabbed third with 50 voting points while Swarthmore (41 points) and Muhlenberg (36 points) round out the top five predicted finishers at the conference meet.
Gettysburg (26 points), Ursinus (21 points), Franklin & Marshall (18 points) and McDaniel (9 points) are slated to finish sixth through ninth, respectively, in the preseason prognostication.
In 2017, Haverford again captured the Centennial Championship, scoring 21 points and putting four runners ahead of the top finisher from second place Johns Hopkins on the campus of Gettysburg College. The Fords went on to capture the Mideast Regional in dominating fashion, placing five finishers within the top 10 in the region. Haverford finished 8th at the NCAA Division III National Championship in Elsah, Ill.
The Fords have an extremely promising 2018 campaign in the works. Haverford will have to replace Henry Woods, who was a two-time All-America selection, but the squad returns five of its top seven runners from the national meet, including Mideast Regional Runner of the Year Graham Peet and fellow All-Region selections Ryan Herlihy, Greg Morgan, Dylan Gearinger and sophomore Sam McCalpin. With another year of experience in postseason meets, the group will have a national championship as its common goal and a large crop of talented seniors ready to rise to the occasion.
Head Coach Tom Donnelly's squad gets the season underway at the Alumni Open (Sept. 8) before hosting the Main Line Invitational on September 14. The Fords will host the Centennial Conference Championships on October 27 on the Alumni Cross Country Course.