NORTHFIELD, Minn. – The Carleton College men's cross country team finished 10th out of 31 teams at the NCAA North Region Championships.
"You never know from weekend to weekend who is going to provide the spark," said Carleton head coach
Dave Ricks. "You need five guys each week to really step up. It's healthy for a team to have different guys sharing that workload. Today was the first step towards getting back to the National Championships next year. This is a great group of guys."
Carleton finished fourth at the MIAC Championships two weeks ago but was second only to No. 9-ranked St. Olaf College among conference schools racing at this meet.
Gabe Nichols paced the Knights with a 17th-place result as he crossed the line with a time of 25:00.7.
Roy Llewellyn finished 24th at 25:07.6 and joined Nichols on the All-Region team.
Ravi Achar took 80th place at 26:18.2, with
Indy Lyness finishing 83rd at 26:20.4 only 0.3 second ahead of teammate
Josh Meier.
"The guys ran great," Ricks said. "Gabe and Roy had their best races of the season, but the next three guys really ran well, too. Josh, Indy, and Ravi all ran together and pulled each other to their best races of the season, and probably
Josh Meier's best race ever. Josh was our only senior racing today, so it was nice to send him off with this memory. I can't wait to see what he does on the track this winter.
"Indy was injured all summer and didn't start running until the beginning of October. He was super disciplined doing his rehab and cross training. He brought a spark to that scoring group of runners. And Ravi improved each and every race this fall. He kept things interesting."
Travis Brown and
Ryan Bernstein also raced for the Knights, placing 123rd and 134th, respectively. Brown covered the eight-kilometer course in 27:18.4, while Bernstein came across the line amongst a group of runners at 27:33.3.
"Travis and Ryan had great seasons," said Ricks, "although the season got a little long, and they put in good summers of training."
It is of little surprise that national No. 1-ranked UW-La Crosse won the team title with a score of 40, claiming the region's automatic berth to next week's NCAA Championships. No. 6 UW-Whitewater (78 points) edged St. Olaf (87) for second place. UW-Stevens Point (158) and No. 22 UW-Eau Claire (178) rounded out the top-five teams.
Up Next for the Knights
The full field will be posted on NCAA.com on by 2:00 p.m. CST on Sunday, Nov. 17. While Carleton will not advance to the national meet as a team, the Knights will wait and see if anyone is able to advance as individual qualifiers. The top-7 finishers at the regional meet that are not on a team that advances to the NCAA Championships will be individual qualifiers to the national meet.
