State College, Pa. – Graduate student William Way (Cheltenham/Glenside, Pa.) earned a third-place seat in the Ithaca College record books with a strong finish of 26 minutes 59 seconds in the 5.2 mile Penn State Spiked Shoe Invitational.
Way led the Bombers, who placed ninth overall and second of competing NCAA Division III schools, with a 60th place finish. Ithaca’s team score of 293 trumped Division I schools Buffalo and St. Francis (Pa.) and Division II teams California (Pa.) and Indiana (Pa.), in addition to three Division III schools.
Way’s time earns him a third-place spot in the Bomber record books behind only Pat McGreal who ran 26:27 on the same course five years prior, and Pat O’Connor’s 26:54 performance at the Hobart Golf Course on Oct. 30, 1982.
A total of six Bombers who ran in a scoring position also secured spots on the Ithaca 5.2 mile top 30 chart.
Senior John Davis (Salem/Salem, Mass.) finished 72nd and junior Dan Craighead (Ithaca/Ithaca) 75th with times of 27:17 and 27:20, respectively. Also in the top 100 finishers, senior Tyler Gustafson (Jamestown/Lakewood) crossed the line 93rd with a time of 27:46.
Rounding out the top seven finishers for the Bombers were senior A.J. McConville (Haldane/Cold Spring) in 114th place, sophomore Mark Vorensky (Metuchen/Metuchen, N.J.) in 119th place and sophomore Billy Savage (Indian Hills/Oakland, N.J.) in 134th place.
McConville finished in 28:09 and Vorensky was just five seconds behind finishing in 28:14. Savage posted a time of 28.42 to finish seventh for Ithaca.