Binghamton University men’s and women’s cross country teams traveled to Lehigh University this past Friday to compete in the Lehigh Paul Short Run. The men’s team had an impressive outing, placing 10th out of 42 teams, with the women’s team placing 29th out of 41.

‘As a team, we went into Lehigh knowing that it was definitely an important race in order to show the improvement we have made in the past year and that we are capable to be a top contender in the conference and region,’ said sophomore Lindsay Raulli. ‘I think our team did well, being our first year in the more competitive race, but we are still focused on working together to form a stronger front pack for the championship meets.’

For the men, senior Erik van Ingen was able to improve on his 17th-place finish from last year with his best finish ever in this race, breaking into the top 10 for the first time and placing eighth overall out of 387 runners. Van Ingen was the top performer for Binghamton, finishing the 8K with a time of 24:04.

‘Erik had a solid race and his best finish ever,’ said BU head coach Annette Acuff.

Sophomore Jeff Martinez was the second Binghamton runner to cross the finish line, coming in 48th with a time of 24:52. Following Martinez were seniors Casey Quaglia placing 74th (25:05) and Adam Quinn placing 87th (25:08). Graduate student Chris Gaube came next placing 118th (25:18), followed by sophomores Vasili Papastrat in 196th (25:56) and Brendan Connell in 211th (26:01).

The University of Virginia, Georgetown University and the College of William and Mary came in first, second and third, respectively. The BU men finished with a total time of 2:04:26 for their top five finishers, trailing Cornell University’s total time by only one second.

‘On the men’s side we had a decent performance overall,’ Acuff said. ‘This year’s meet had three top-25 programs nationally. So the field was strong, but I think we could have been much closer to Columbia (7th) and beaten Cornell (9th) and Liberty (8th). It was the first meet of the season for a lot of our top guys, and I think we were a bit gun-shy. They learned a lot from this meet and should be fired up for the Pre-National meet at Indiana State.’

Sam Chelanga, a senior from Liberty University, was the first to cross the finish line for the men with a time of 23:34.

Raulli finished first for the Bearcats, placing 85th out of 350 runners with a time of 22:01, improving her time by one minute and 40 seconds since last year. Sophomore Rachel Miura followed close behind (22:07) coming in 95th, also improving her time from last year by 23 seconds. This duo crossed the finish line first and second for Binghamton at the meet held at home against Siena on Sept. 14, as well.

‘On the women’s side, overall, we ran pretty well,’ Acuff said. ‘A lot of girls ran quite a bit faster than last year and some freshmen ran very well for their first 6K.’

Senior Sarah Veith (23:06) finished in 194th place, followed by senior Ashley Horton (23:09) finishing 198th, freshman Carly Kiess (23:15) finishing 210th and freshman Caitlin Jelinek (23:26) finishing 222nd.

‘The field was very competitive with a couple of top-25 teams nationally, but it was a great experience for the team. We need to continue to close the gap between our top two and next three.’ Acuff said.

Georgetown University placed first as a team with a total time of 1:42:06, with the University of Virginia (1:44:07) and James Madison University (1:45:36) placing second and third. The BU women finished with a total time of 1:53:14.

‘Moving on to the next few races,’ Raulli said Raulli. ‘I think everyone is very confident in what we can accomplish this year and excited to have some strong performances at the end of the season.’

Junior Emily Infeld from Georgetown University finished the race first with a time of 20:04.

The cross country team will look to continue its strong performances at the Albany Invitational and Indiana State Pre-National Invitational, both scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 16.