Men’s Cross Country Takes 22nd Place at the Paul Short Run

Saturday, October 1

Goodman Campus

9:30 a.m.

Lehigh University

Paul Short Run

Men’s Cross Country Takes 22nd Place at the Paul Short Run

10/1/2016 9:03:00 PM | Men's Cross Country

Complete Results (PaulShortXCRun.com)

BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The Lehigh men's cross country team raced to a 22nd place finish on Saturday morning at the 43rd annual Paul Short Run at Lehigh's Goodman Campus Course. Lehigh competed in the Gold Race which featured 38 teams and 336 finishers. Freshman Jeffrey Kirshenbaum led the way for Lehigh, completing the 8K with a time of 25:03, putting him in 116th place overall. Iona, ranked No. 16 nationally, captured the Gold Race championship with 34 team points and placed four runners in the top 10 overall. The Mid-Atlantic Region's top seed Georgetown finished a distant second (115 points), followed by Division II powerhouse Adams State (Colo.) in third, No. 26 Penn (146 points) in fourth place and Columbia (167 points) in fifth place.

Senior Ryan Cooney followed behind Kirshenbaum to finish second on the Mountain Hawks in 131st place overall in 25:10. Sophomore Samuel Layding (144th/25:15) took third on the team, followed by freshman Matt Kravitz (155th/25:19) in fourth and Patrick Reilly (160th/25:20) in fifth. Sophomore Brian Arita (25:31) finished 177th overall, and senior Alexander Fitzgerald (25:33) finished seventh on the team in 180th place overall.

(10/1/2016) 2016 Paul Short Run

John Tobert (25:39), Kyle Leonard (26:06) and Christopher Mascetti (26:09) also represented the Brown and White in the Gold Race.

"Jeff had a fantastic race," said head coach Todd Etters. "I thought he moved up through the field really well, as did a couple of our other guys right behind him."

Lehigh got a chance to match up against Patriot League foes Army West Point and Navy, both of whom also competed in the Gold Race, giving the team a chance to see where things stand as the league championships inch closer.

"Navy is very deep and very talented," Etters said. "Army looked very impressive as well. I think we have our work cut out for us. I think we're very fit right now, but we'll wrap our heads around where we're at and obviously try and improve the next two weeks. I think we need to pull back the reigns a bit, let them recover and then we'll reap the benefits of all the hard work they've put in."

Earlier in the day, Lehigh had a large contingent compete in the 8K Men's Open Race. Junior Ryan Grace led the way in the Open for Lehigh with a 30th place performance in 25:17, followed by sophomore Mitchell Daddario (25:35) in 50th place, and junior Joseph Inglis (25:46) in 66th place. The group was among a large turnout of 504 finishers.

Lehigh's next meet will come in two weeks on Oct. 15 at the Leopard Invitational, hosted by Lafayette.