HAVERFORD, Pa. - The No. 22 Haverford College men's cross country team hosted the Haverford Invitational on Friday afternoon under ideal conditions for racing, with a true mid-autumn afternoon in store for the meet on the Alumni Cross Country Course.
Despite a limited number of entrants to the second home meet of the season, the Fords placed five runners within the top 20 attached finishers in an impressive showing against Division I sides Villanova and Saint Joseph's as well as regional foe Widener. Ryan Quenemoen was the top Haverford finisher, crossing in ninth place overall with a time of 21:20.1, a new career best for the four-mile distance. Jeffrey Allen was the next runner from Haverford to cross the finish line, taking a 11th place finish with a time of 21:21.5, also a new personal best. Peter LaRochelle then crossed in 12th overall, notching a time of 21:31.3 to continue an impressive rookie campaign.
Luca Ponticello (21:36.2) and Jacob Gaba (21:48.6) also notched top 20 finishes, with Seamus Fraser (21:58.1) and Matthew Denton (22:01.1) to follow right behind in 22nd and 23rd, respectively. Scott Kaiser finished 25th in 22:11.8 with Reed Solomon (22:17.8) and Evan Daniels (22:21.1) crossing in 26th and 27th. Sammy Schindel was the 29th entrant to cross in 22:35.0, while Seamus Flannery (22:53.1) and Michael Franco (23:40.6) were the next pair to complete the course for Haverford. Caesar Dai (23:41.4) and Jay Whitesell (23:53.1) then wrapped up a stretch of five consecutive Haverford finishers, ahead of William Harris who was the 35th to cross in 24:27.1.
Harris was the first of seven consecutive Haverford entrants to cross the line, with Kieran McDonnell (24:35.5), Seawon Park (24:35.8), Rowan Shigeno (25:06.1), Sam Diaz (25:23.2), Tommaso Wheeler (25:35.8), and Keqing He (26:27.3) rounding out the Fords contingent.
Men's cross country will now begin to ramp up its preparations for next weekend's Centennial Conference Championships, which are slated for October 30 at noon. The conference championship will be hosted by Johns Hopkins.