Men's Cross Country Finishes 20th At NCAA Regionals

The seven-time Northeast Conference Champion Central Connecticut men's cross country team finished 20th out of 37 teams at the 2015 NCAA Northeast Cross Country Regionals on Friday afternoon. The 10K meet was held at Franklin Park in Boston, MA and featured 251 total runners.

Northeast Conference runner-up, junior Ryan Hertzog, led the way for the Blue Devils at the regional meet, claiming a 65th place individual finish. Hertzog navigated the 10K course in a time of 32:05 to earn the 65th place result out of 251.

Hertzog was followed by a pair of freshman in Austin Trainor and Alex Norstrom. Trainor, who was the 2015 NEC Rookie of the Year, crossed the finish line second for the Blue Devils with a final time of 32:35 to place 98th overall. Norstrom was next taking 120th place with a time of 32:56.

Sophomore Brendan Callahan and junior Joseph Gioielli rounded out the scoring runners for CCSU finishing 139th and 142nd, respectively. Callahan turned in a time of 33:07 and Gioielli completed the course right behind him in 33:09.

Junior's Derek French and Malcolm Connor also competed in the meet for Central. French finished 166th with a final time of 33:34 and Malcolm crossed the finish line at the 34:30 mark to claim a 204th place finish.

The Blue Devils totaled 564 points and averaged a time 32:47 across the five scoring runners to earn the 20th place finish out of 37 teams. Central's 20th place finish put them ahead of schools such as Connecticut, Northeastern, Vermont, Albany and New Hampshire, as well as all of the Northeast Conference schools represented at the meet.

Syracuse won the meet with a score of 29 followed by Iona (40), Cornell (114), Dartmouth (153) and Columbia (156) to round out the top-five.

The Blue Devils' men's cross country team will return to action next weekend with the IC4A Championships. The meet will be held next Saturday at Van Cortland Park in Bronx, NY.