LOGAN TOWNSHIP, N.J. – The Lebanon Valley men's cross country team had a strong day to finish eighth at the Inter-Regional Border Battle hosted by Rowan University on Saturday.

"This was absolutely an amazing performance for our men's team, head coach James O'Brien stated. "To the best of my knowledge our five-runner average of 25:57 is a program record. I'm very proud of the way we were able to regroup after just an okay day two weeks ago at Paul Short. They came out and raced with a passion that we haven't seen yet this year. Three sub-26 finishers, eight sub-27, and 15 sub-28 finishers are incredible numbers for our team."
 
The race featured 18 regionally ranked teams including four other teams that are ranked in the Mid-Atlantic Region with the Dutchmen. Host Rowan, ranked third in the Metro Region, topped the field with 87 points. DeSales University was second with 135 points while Moravian University was third with 144 points. The Dutchmen scored 245 points and beat Misericordia University by two points. The Cougars were ranked just ahead of the Dutchmen at seventh in the regional rankings this week.
 
Matthew Santana led the Dutchmen finishing 20th out of 278 finishers with a time of 25:31.6. Sam Rothstein wasn't far behind him with a time of 25:41.7 to finish 34th. Joe Chukoskie was the third LVC runner to finish with a time of 25:57.3 while Elijah McKell ran 26:19.6. Vinny Ferrizzi rounded out the top five with a time of 26:20.3.

LVC Finishers (Championship Race)

PL	NAME	Avg. Mile	TIME	SCORE
20	Matthew Santana	05:08.1	25:31.6	20
34	Sam Rothstein	05:10.1	25:41.7	33
52	Joe Chukoskie	05:13.3	25:57.3	50
73	Elijah McKell	05:17.7	26:19.6	69
77	Vinny Ferrizzi	05:17.9	26:20.3	73
89	Samuel Bower	05:19.4	26:27.9	84
92	Donnie Miller	05:19.6	26:28.7	87
145	Alec Di Cesare	05:27.0	27:05.4
156	Lukas Walko	05:28.5	27:12.9
181	Aden Davis	05:32.3	27:32.1

 
LVC Finishers (Open Race)

PL	NAME	Avg. Mile	TIME	SCORE
16	Ryan O'Byrne	05:23.8	26:49.6	14
20	Eric Shelton	05:27.0	27:05.6	18
33	Joseph Pleban	05:33.3	27:36.9	27
38	Liam Allen	05:35.1	27:46.1	31
45	Dylan Lenhart	05:36.3	27:52.0	38
58	Mac Eschinger	05:42.3	28:21.8	49
61	Cole Lehman	05:43.2	28:26.0	52
75	Caleb Scarborough	05:49.3	28:56.5
114	Trevor Gipe	06:21.0	31:34.0
115	Penn Smith	06:23.5	31:46.3

Up Next
The Dutchmen will host their second home meet of the year to wrap up the regular season on Friday. The Last Chance Run Fast Invitational will be held at Union Canal Tunnel Park with the men's race to start at 5:15 p.m. in Lebanon. LVC is expected to rest their top runners for the final regular season meet.

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