EDINBORO, Pa. – Led by a third-place finish by
Alex Hampel (Middletown, Del./Salesianum), the IUP men's cross country team placed its top-five runners in the top nine places to take home the team victory at the Doug Watts Distance Gala Saturday on the 8K course in Edinboro.
In the nine-team event, IUP's low score of 30 was better than PSAC foes Edinboro's 49 and Slippery Rock's 61.
Hampel's time of 25:38.3 led the Crimson Hawks, as he was closely followed by the trio of
Austin Cooper (King of Prussia, Pa. /Upper Merion High School ),
Ray Ofman (Armagh, Pa. /United) and
Caleb Cordell (Erie, Pa. /McDowell) in fifth, sixth and seventh places, respectively. Cooper edged out Ofman by just more than a second, while Cordell was six seconds slower than Ofman.
Dalton Trump (Lancaster, Pa. /J.P. McCaskey) finished in ninth at 26:23.1, while
Greg Beaudette (Johnston, R.I./Bishop Hendricken) and
Andrew Morgan (Gold, Pa. /Northern Potter) rounded out IUP's top-seven runners.
IUP, under seventh-year head coach
Joey Zins, was picked to finish fourth in the PSAC preseason poll. Edinboro was picked to finish third and Slippery Rock fifth.
The Crimson Hawks take a week off before hitting the road to compete in Virginia Tech's Alumni Invitational Sept. 18 in Blacksburg, Va.
For up-to-date game information, visit www.IUPAthletics.com and follow IUP cross country on Twitter @IUPCrimsonHawk and @IUPtrackNfield.
