Reilly Races at NCAA Championships

Saturday, November 18

Louisville, Ky.

10 a.m.

Lehigh University

NCAA Cross Country Championships

Photo by: Don Paul

11/18/2017 11:26:00 AM | Men's Cross Country

Complete Results: (TFRRS) | PDF

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Lehigh's Patrick Reilly capped off his senior cross country season on Saturday morning with a 233rd place finish at the NCAA Championships, completing the 10K course at E.P. "Tom" Sawyer Park in 32:20.00.

Reilly is just the fourth runner in the history of Lehigh's men's cross country program to race at the NCAA Championships. In doing so, he joined Ryan Mahalsky '15, who holds Lehigh's highest-ever finish at nationals with a 46th place finish at the 2014 national championships. Previously, Tyler Mueller qualified in 2013 and Evans Kosgei competed at the championship in 2010.

"We are all proud of Pat for reaching the highest level of our sport," said head coach Todd Etters. "It was a tremendous career and his accomplishments will be remembered for a long time."

Syracuse's Justyn Knight used a surge over the final 100 meters to pass Northern Arizona's Matthew Baxter to take home the individual title in 29:00.2. Tyler Day of Northern Arizona finished third, which helped the NAU capture the team national championship crown with 74 points. NAU finished with three runners in the top 10 overall. Portland finished second with 127 team points and BYU finished in third with 165 points. Utah State's Dillon Maggard, who won the Paul Short Gold Race in September, finished sixth overall. From the Mid-Atlantic Region, Princeton finished 28th and Patriot League foe Navy finished 31st. Army West Point's John Valeri placed 160th overall (31:14.2) out of 250 runners. Boston U.'s Paul Luevano also represented the Patriot League, and finished 222nd (32:01.8). On the women's side, Bucknell's Christine Bendzinski finished 143rd overall.

Saturday's race caps what has been a fantastic senior season for Reilly. At regionals, he tied Mahalsky's school record for the highest finish by a Lehigh runner at the NCAA Regional meet by placing fifth overall, the highest placement for a Patriot League runner at the meet. His 10K regional time of 30:39.4 bested his previous 10K PR by 1:05.3. Reilly led the Lehigh pack in six of his seven meets this season, and twice was named the Patriot League's Runner of the Week.

He began the season by capturing his first collegiate victory at the Lehigh Invitational (18:38.02-6K), finishing first out of 88 runners. After winning the Lehigh-Lafayette dual meet in 26:05.52 (8K), Reilly then placed 21st overall out of 156 runners at the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown in 24:46.1. In the Gold Race at the Paul Short Run, Reilly ran the fastest time ever by a Lehigh male on the 8K course at Goodman Campus with a time of 23:57.0, placing 18th overall out of 359 runners in a race that featured multiple nationally ranked teams and some of the top runners from across the country. He later went on to place seventh overall at the Penn State National Open and 25th at the Patriot League Championships.

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