Mountain Hawks finish eighth against tough field at Battle in Beantown

Friday, September 22

Boston, Mass.

3:30 p.m.

Lehigh University

Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown

Mountain Hawks finish eighth against tough field at Battle in Beantown

9/22/2017 6:11:00 PM | Men's Cross Country

Complete Results (TFRRS) | 2017 Men's XC Stats Sheet

BOSTON – Running against a deep and competitive field, the Lehigh men's cross country team finished in eighth place out of 18 teams at the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown Friday at historic Franklin Park. The Mountain Hawks, ranked 13th in the latest USTFCCCA Mid-Atlantic Regional Rankings, scored 241 points with their top five scorers finishing in the top 66 of a 157-runner field.

Senior Patrick Reilly was Lehigh's top finisher, completing the 8K course in 24:46.1 to finish 21st overall. Reilly finished 34 seconds behind the individual champion Jesse Reiser of Illinois. Sophomore Jeffrey Kirshenbaum was the second Lehigh runner to cross the line, claiming 33rd place with a time of 25:05.4.

"We had a goal coming in of finishing top 10 and we achieved that," Lehigh head coach Todd Etters said. "Pat Reilly and Jeff Kirshenbaum got a taste of running up front with national-class competition and our packs held together really well, so we're leaving here happy but we know we have some areas to improve on and that's what's most exciting."

New England native Brad DeMassa led a three-runner Lehigh pack that crossed the line in succession to claim places 64, 65 and 66. DeMassa clocked in at 25.35.5 while senior Ryan Grace was next at 25:36.2 and sophomore Victor Yegon was right behind at 25:36.8.

"Brad, our freshman ran awesome," Etters noted. "He's a kid that's from the New England area so he was competing close to home and really executed his plan. You could tell he felt good during the race and really took advantage of it."

Senior John Tolbert made his season debut with a time of 25:48.4 to finish in 83rd place, while sophomore Matt Kravitz was the Mountain Hawks' seventh finisher, taking 90th place at 25:54.9.

Also competing for the Mountain Hawks were junior Brian Arita, who finished 101st (26:04.8), freshman Seth Slavin, who took 107th (26:09.6) and senior Joseph Inglis, who finished 113th (26:12.6).

Syracuse had five of the top 12 individual finishers and eight of the top 20 as the Orange won the team title with 35 points. Illinois was second with 56 while Indiana took third with 106.

"I wanted to add some tougher competitions to our schedule," Etters said. "That was a weakness of ours in years past. What I wanted to see out of a meet like this is how hard we could compete and I thought we competed really hard and I'm excited to now see how we do on a course we know really well against even better competition."

The Mountain Hawks will host the 44th annual Paul Short Run, Friday Sept. 29 on the Goodman Campus Cross Country Course.

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