Syracuse men’s and women’s finish top 10 at Virginia Invitational

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After a week off, Syracuse men’s and women’s cross country resumed their seasons at the Virginia Invitational on Saturday. The men finished fourth while the women placed 10th in their respective races.

Coming off of back-to-back first place finishes, the men’s team took a finished fourth out of 23 schools in the 8000m with none of their runners placing in the top 15. Northern Arizona took the top spot with 71 points followed by BYU (101 points) and UNC (157 points). Syracuse tallied 167 points with their finish, as it edged out Villanova (169 points) to round out the top five.

SU recorded a team time of 1:59:14.3, resulting in an average time of 23:50.9. Senior Paul O’Donnell was Syracuse’s lone top 30 finisher, finishing 19th overall. O’Donnell recorded a time of 23:42.3. Senior Perry Mackinnon placed second for the Orange and 31st overall with a time of 23:47.1. Sophomores Sam Lawler (23:52.2, 35th overall) and Assaf Harari (23:55.1, 38th overall) and junior Alex Comerford (23:57.8, 44th overall) were the Orange’s other top finishers. Northern Arizona senior Drew Bosley finished first in the race with a time of 23:20.3.

In the women’s 5000m, Syracuse placed 10th out of 23 teams with no SU runner finishing inside the top 40. Syracuse recorded 269 points. Northern Arizona claimed first place with 48 points, more than doubling second place Stanford with 104. Virginia finished in third with 123 points with Washington (131 points) and Georgetown (204 points) following. The Orange finished with a team time of 1:26:03.6 with an average of 17:12.8. Junior Savannah Roark was the first to cross the finish line for SU and 41st overall with a time of 17:02.9. Junior Rylie Lusk (17:09.4, 50th overall) joined Roark as the only two SU runners that placed in the top 50. Northern Arizona junior Elise Stearns finished number one overall with a time of 16:18.9.

Syracuse will head to Massachusetts next week to compete in the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown on Friday, September 29th.