Men's Results  |  Men's Team Results  |  Women's Results  |  Women's Team Results  |  MAC XC Championship Homepage

by Caleb McGaughran, GoMessiah.com reporter

Center Valley, PA - Messiah's men' s and women's cross country teams raced very well this weekend as both teams seized fourth place at the Middle Atlantic Conference Championship, hosted by DeSales University.  The men placed behind Widener University who claimed first in the conference while the women placed behind Elizabethtown College who won the conference title

"The women ran well today," said Coach Dale Fogelsanger.  "We were only nineteen points out from second place even with our previous number one runner not able to finish."

Three Messiah women were among the top twenty finishers of the championship. Jessica Visneski made First Team All-MAC for the second year in a row, with a tenth place finish of 24:13.2, while Tasha Becker and Alissa Rogers made Second Team All-Conference onference. Rogers finished twelfth overall at 24:25.92 while Becker finished fourteenth with a time of 24:39.16. Rogers was also the third freshman finisher in the conference

In addition, Fogelsanger stated that a total of six women runners averaged thirty seconds faster on the DeSales course than when they raced there earlier this season. Emma Barbagallo and Jennifer Bove both stepped up their game and placed among the team's top five runners, Barbagallo placing thirty-third overall at 26:13.37 while Bove finished thirty-fourth overall at 26:17.71 

As for the men Fogelsanger said that, "We basically did the best we could. The team had a strong finish and many had great races, especially Jonphilip McGill, Caleb McGaughran and Jeremy White. In fact, all of the guys running had almost a three minute cumulative time improvement from the last time we ran at DeSales this season"

Messiah's Jared Schatz ran very well, placing tenth overall, making First Team All-MAC for the second year in a row with a time of 27:06.15

Placing second for Messiah and twenty-second overall was Nathaniel Pardoe, who ran an impressive time of 27:58.70-- only a second off his personal best time set at DeSales earlier this season.

"It was impressive to see that there was only a twenty-one second time spread between our number two and number seven runners," added Fogelsanger. "I was really pleased to see our pack running that we've been working on all season come to fruition."

Following the conference championship, the top seven men and women will look forward to competing at the NCAA Mideast Regional championship, hosted by Lehigh University on Nov. 16.

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