NEW YORK – The Yale men's cross country team took fourth place (98 points) at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships Friday morning at Van Cortlandt Park. Senior
Owen Karas was Yale's top individual finisher, placing third. His time of 24:15.8 bests the previous school Heps record for Van Cortlandt Park, set in 1981 by
Andrew Atkeson '83 (24:19.1).
Princeton (32 points) won the meet. The Tigers' Myles Hogan finished first individually (23:26.4).
With NCAA Regionals coming up, Heps also provided a chance for Yale to measure itself against several other Northeast Region teams. The Bulldogs entered the race ranked fourth in the region. Other Ivy League teams in the regional rankings were:
- No. 2 Harvard (second at Heps, 46 points)
- No. 9 Cornell (third at Heps, 92 points)
- No. 12 Columbia (sixth at Heps, 146 points)
- No. 13 Dartmouth (fifth at Heps, 143 points)
(Princeton was No. 1 and Penn was No. 9 in the Mid-Atlantic Region rankings)
The Bulldogs:
- Senior Owen Karas led the Bulldogs home with a third-place finish (24:15.8). This was a dramatic improvement on his 18th place finish from a year ago, and he receives first team All-Ivy League recognition for finishing in the top seven. The league will announce the awards formally next week.
- Senior Kenan Pala (19th, 25:07.2) was Yale's second finisher. This marked the seventh time in his last eight races that Pala has finished among the Bulldogs' top three.
- Junior Daegan Cutter (22nd, 25:23.4) was Yale's third finisher. He has been Yale's No. 3 finisher in three straight races.
- Senior Braden King (26th, 25:35.1), Yale's captain, finished fourth for the Bulldogs. He moved up 15 spots over the final 5.9K.
- Senior Alex Mader (36th, 25:48.9) and first-year Magnus Manley (39th, 25:51.0) were next across the line for Yale.
- Sophomore Lucas Cohen (45th, 25:55.4) was Yale's seventh finisher, edging classmate Seb Sutch (46th, 25:55.4)
- Yale's other finishers included sophomore Matthew Schutzbank (53rd, 26:09.0), senior Will Sheehy (68th, 26:42.7) and junior Tanish Chettiar (81st, 27:15.5).
Up Next:
- Yale will compete at the NCAA Northeast Regionals on Friday, Nov. 14 at Hopkinton State Fairgrounds in Contoocook, N.H. The Bulldogs placed 11th at Regionals last year.
- NCAA Championships selections will be announced by 5:00 p.m. ET Saturday, Nov. 15 on ncaa.com.
- The NCAA Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships provide for a maximum of 32 (five-to-seven-person) teams and 38 individuals per gender.
- Eighteen teams automatically qualify for the championships races by finishing as one of the top two teams at any of the nine regional races.
- The remaining 14 at-large teams are selected by the NCAA Division I Cross Country Subcommittee.
- Thirty-six individuals automatically qualify for the championships races by being one of the top four regional finishers not on an advancing team.
- Two additional individuals are selected at-large by the committee.
