USTFCCCA National Poll
Mideast Regional Rankings 

HAVERFORD, Pa. – The Haverford College men's cross country team jumped into the top ten in the US Track and Field Cross Country Coaches' Association national poll, coming in at No. 9. It's the fourth straight week that the Fords have climbed in the poll. Haverford was also tied as the No. 1 team in the Mideast Region with Carnegie Mellon.

The Fords' No. 9 ranking this week is the team's highest since being placed No. 1 on November 12th, 2012. Haverford has made a steady ascent in 2015, improving from No. 23 in the preseason to its current position. It's the first time since the national poll started in 2006 that the team has improved four weeks in a row.

UW-Eau Claire ended North Central's 12 week run at No. 1, taking over the top spot. North Central dropped to No. 2 while St. Olaf, Amherst and Washington (Mo.) round out the top five. Johns Hopkins is the only other Centennial Conference team in the poll, ranking 18th. Dickinson was one of 10 teams to receive votes in the poll, but not be ranked.

Haverford scored six of 11 first-place votes to join Carnegie Mellon with 104 voting points at the top of the Mideast Region. Johns Hopkins, Elizabethtown and Dickinson are in the top five while Swarthmore places in eighth in the region.

Senior Charlie Marquardt won his fifth career cross country individual title last Friday at the Paul Short Run, crossing the finish line with a time of 24:56. Marquardt has won four of the last six races he's ran in. In the event that had 354 finishers, he won by five seconds over Kieran Sutton of Shippensburg. The senior's stellar run led to him being selected as the Centennial Conference Runner of the Week for the fourth time in his cross country career.

Head coach Tom Donnelly's team will take a week off before running at the Rowan Inter-Regional on October 17th, beginning at 11 a.m.