Men’s Cross Country Captures Fifth in HCAC Championships

The Anderson University men's cross country team captured fifth place in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) Championships on Saturday at Blue River Memorial Park in Shelbyville.

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology cruised to first place with 25 points. Manchester University came in second with 53 points, finishing ahead of Franklin College (73), Hanover College (105), Anderson (162), Berea College (170), Earlham College (170) and Transylvania (226), which rounds out the team standings. Bluffton University and Mount St. Joseph University did not have enough runners to field a scoring team.

Manchester's Gavin Byerly took the individual title with an 8K time of 25 minutes, 49.9 seconds.

David Stansbury locked up 36th with an 8K time of 28:12.2 to lead the Ravens. Johnnie Behrends secured 43rd (29:13.0), Kyle Corbin claimed 54th (29:31.1) and Cole Koontz came in 55th (29:35.0). Anderson XCTF Performer of the Meet Ryan Krake turned in a 71st-place finish with a time of 30:30.0, breaking his personal record (PR) by 1:31.1. Maxwell Cobb claimed 83rd with a PR time of 32:00.3. David Lane secured 84th (32:01.9), Caleb Savage placed 88th (32:58.0) and Philip Butler finished 90th (33:16.3) to round out Anderson's runners. Anderson's first and fifth runners were separated by 2:17.8, the team's smallest separation of the season.

"The course was familiar and the weather was terrific," Coach Nic Huffman said. "I felt we were prepared going into the meet. Both [the men and women's] teams ran really strong and gave their best effort. That is all I ask. The men rallied to get their tightest race spread from first to fifth. That made all the difference. This is a very young group with a lot of determination."

Anderson returns to action in the NCAA D-III Great Lakes Regional on Saturday, Nov. 15 at 10 a.m. in Louisville, Ky. at Tom Sawyer Park.