Complete Men's Results
Complete Women's Results
CENTER VALLEY, Pa. – Lebanon Valley's men's and women's cross country teams capped their 2016 campaigns at the NCAA Mideast Regional Championship Meet held at DeSales on Saturday morning, Nov. 12.
The men's team finished 17th out of 52 competing squads, while the women came home 19th out of 51 teams in the field.
"Collectively, our goal was to have both squads finish in the top 20," said LVC head coach
James O'Brien '07, M'16. "We compete in the largest region in the country and we handled ourselves well in such large fields."
Nick Scullin was program's top finisher on the men's side, coming home an impressive 53rd with a time of 26:28, while
Chad Bomgardner had a strong showing with a time of 26:30, good enough to earn him a 59th-place finish.
Garrett Santis finished off his rookie campaign with a 99th-place finish thanks to a time of 26:55, while
Noah Brady (138th) and
Stephen Chappell (177th) each earned top-200 finishes in the large field of competition.
Ibsen Powers just missed out on breaking the top 200 with a 210th-place finish, as did
Harrison Kelly in 215th with a time just two minutes off Scullin's team-best pace in the 351-man field.
"Our men finished six spots higher than last year and I feel we put out a significantly better team effort than we did at MACs two weeks ago," said O'Brien. This is a team that can be top 10 next year. Nick (Scullin) and Chad (Bomgardner) put forth a wonderful tandem effort to give us two lower cards today. Chad finished as the 11th MAC competitor today which was a big jump from 29th two weeks ago.
"Garrett (Santis) showed incredible poise for a freshman to break into the top 100, while Noah (Brady) finished just slightly behind for a tough top four," he continued. "Stephen (Chappell) stepped up in the final cross country race of his career to score for us for the first time in two years. This was a solid team effort and makes me excited for our 2017 season."
Hannah Kurek continued her recent outstanding push for the women's team and was the squad's top finisher in 78th place with a time of 23:47.
Kate Mowrey concluded her freshman season with an impressive 89th-place run thanks to her time of 24:08.
Lauren Decker continued to be her reliable self for the Dutchmen as her time of 24:42 earned her a 130th-place finish, while
Brittany Rees and
Hannah Kramlik pushed each other to finish back-to-back in 152nd and 153rd, respectively.
Mackenzie Lausch (182nd) and
Rebecca Sitler (189th) also came home with top 200 finishes in the large field of nearly 400 runners to wrap up the LVC group in Saturday's race.
"Our ladies actually finished one spot worse than last year but without the extremely low one card that Kelsey (Patrick '16) always provided in these large fields," said O'Brien regarding his women's team's performance. "Top 20 is always a good day and this was actually a better team effort than last year in my estimation. Hannah (Kurek) capped her incredible sophomore campaign by leading our pack once again with a sub-24 on a tough course. Kate (Mowrey) was close behind finishing as the MACs 18th runner after she finished 23rd against conference competition two weeks ago.
"Lauren (Decker), Brittany (Rees) and Hannah (Kramlik) again provided a fantastic team scoring effort," continued O'Brien. "Achieving our entire scoring group in the top 150 of a 371-person field is impressive."
