Syracuse Men’s Cross Country Finishes 3rd in NCAA Northeast Regionals

By Chris Dahms | @C_Dahms

MANHATTAN, N.Y – After an impressive 2nd place finish in the ACC Championships, Syracuse Men’s Cross Country headed to Van Cortlandt Park for the NCAA Northeast Regional Meet in search of a bid to the NCAA Championship. The top 2 finishing teams from each of the 9 regions in the NCAA automatically qualify for the National Meet, with the Division 1 Subcommittee then selecting 13 additional teams to fill the rest of the 31-team field. 

Syracuse would end up missing out on one of those bids, but still put together a respectable showing in the Big Apple, finishing 3rd in the region with 97 points behind Iona and Harvard, who finished 1st and 2nd respectively. Leading the way for the ‘Cuse was senior Perry Mackinnon, who finished 4th overall in the 10-kilometer race with a time of 29:43.4. Following behind in the top 25 for the Orange were sophomore Sam Lawler in 12th (), junior Alex Comerford in 17th (), and senior Silas Derfel in 23rd (). Rounding out the scoring was senior Nathan Lawler who finished in 43rd (), and fellow senior Matthew Scrappe finished in 138th (). Mackinnon, Lawler, Comerford, and Derfel received All-Region honors with their performances.

While the Orange didn’t quite meet their #1 regional ranking expectations, they still have a convincing case for an at-large bid to the national meet. They entered regionals ranked 8th in the country and 2nd in the ACC. Syracuse also had their star senior Paul O’Donnell out for this meet, who has kept the Orange near the top for most of the season. The Cuse hopes that he’ll be healthy for next week’s national championship meet. The meet will take place at Panorama Farms in Charlottesville, Virginia next Saturday.