Dayton Flyers

Pre-Nationals Blue Race Team Results  |  Pre-Nationals Blue Race Individual Results

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – The University of Dayton men’s cross country team tied for 21st in the 8K Blue Race of the 2010 Pre-Nationals hosted by Indiana State Saturday.  The Pre-National meet is the largest in the country and 18 of the top 30 men’s cross country teams ran the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course.

“The team took another step for this Dayton program in being a competitive force in the Great Lakes Region,” said Head Coach Rich Davis. “We beat Michigan and Marquette head-to-head, we beat Ohio (which ran the White Race) by time and they were all ranked ahead of us in the Region.”

Dayton tied McNeese State with 566 points, while Michigan had 595 for 23rd place and Marquette had 660 points for 27th place. The Flyers also went head-to-head in the Blue Race with Atlantic 10 foe Richmond. The Spiders finished 16th with 452 points.

“Richmond got by us by an average of 14 seconds per man. La Salle ran the White Race and by time we beat them,” said Davis. “We are improving and now we are focused on the A-10 Championships in two weeks.”

No. 1 ranked Stanford won the Blue Race with the help of a 1,2,3 finish by Cardinal runners; Chris Derrick won the race in 23:16, followed by Elliott Heath (23:16) and Jake Riley (23:17).

Senior Chris Lemon was one second off Dayton’s school record with a time of 24:06 and finished 22nd. Redshirt sophomore Greg Roeth cut 26 seconds off his PR and finished 54th in 24:29.

“Chris and Greg ran really great races,” said Davis. “Chris enhanced his chances of getting back to Nationals with his performance and Greg really helped our team take a step closer to where we need to be.”

Also for the Flyers, Matt Lemon was 126th in 25:10, Kyle Lowry was 180th in 25:49, Jeremy Schiele was 184th in 25:51, Doug Norris finished in 26:20 and Ryan Shirley in 27:01.

Dayton will next compete in the Atlantic 10 Championship on Saturday, Oct. 30 in Pittsburgh.