Stevens Competes at Paul Short, Zickgraf Sets Personal Record
OPEN RESULTS
BROWN RESULTS
BETHLEHEM, Pa. (October 5, 2013) – The Stevens Institute of Technology men's cross country team split its squad to compete in two portions of the Paul Short Invitational hosted by Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. on Saturday. The race composed of an open race and a "Brown" meet. Stevens finished 25th in the Brown Race and no team score was compiled for open.
The hot and humid conditions made for a tough day to race but the men still put together one of their best team performances so far this year. The team average was 27:24 for the 8K course and the split was 1:17 between 1 – 5 runners. Freshmen runners
Nicholas Zickgraf (Kenilworth, N.J.) and
Chris Banko (Aberdeen, Md.) both had breakout races to contribute to our top 5 today. Zickgraf's previous best for 8K was 28:41 and he improved to 27:10 in only his fifth cross country race of his life.
The later races of the Invitational were actually cancelled due to the hot and humid conditions. This was a multi-divisional race for both portions.
"Today wasn't as fast as we had hoped for but I see a lot of positives in today's race. We had our closest team spread yet and had some people step up and fill voids when others were struggling. This is a huge step forward for this group and I expect us to only get better was we go forward," said head coach
Justin Wood.
In the Brown portion, senior
Michael Cahill (Clark, N.J.) led Stevens with a time of 26:42. Zickgraf was next to cross the line, and senior
Louis Stengel (Vernon, N.J.) was next, just three seconds behind Zickgraf in 27:13.
Banko clocked a time of 27:53, while junior
Thomas Cunningham (Colonia, N.J.) completed the race in 27:58.
In the open race, which consisted of 518 runners, freshman
Drew Knipfer (St. Joseph, Ill.) was first for the Ducks in a time of 28:31. Junior
Brian Lawrey Jr. (Andover, N.J.) ran a time of 28:37, while freshman
Abe Lahood (Merrick, N.Y.) posted a time of 28:49.
The Ducks travel to Waterford, Conn. on October 19 to compete in the Connecticut College Invitational for their next meet.