LaCoste Leads HPU Men’s Cross Country At Virginia

EARLYSVILLE, Va. — The High Point University men’s cross country team placed 10th in the nationally-competitive Virginia Panorama Farms Invitational on Saturday morning in Earlysville, Va. Redshirt-sophomore Jeff LaCoste led HPU with a 22nd-place finish.

“Jeff ran well, he’s where we hoped he’d be. We need two more people up there with him to compete in a meet like this,” said HPU head coach Mike Esposito. “It was a high-level field and I think we belong with these schools. We didn’t demonstrate it today but we have five weeks until the conference championship. We’ve got a good foundation and we’ve got work to do.”

LaCoste led the Panthers for the first time this season with his 22nd-place finish. He ran around 20th place for the entire race and finished in 24:14.9 for the 8K race. Sophomore Benji Szalai was the Panthers’ second finisher in 42nd overall with a time of 24:42.8. He improved his position throughout the race.

Sophomore Paddy Grandinali placed 60th in 25:08.9 and junior Reece Ayers was right behind in 61st with a time of 25:08.9. Senior Patrick Crawford was the Panthers’ fifth and final scorer in 64th overall with a time of 25:18.4. Crawford had an up-and-down race and improved 21 positions over the last 3,000 meters.

Freshman Chernet Sisay placed 80th overall in 25:42.4 and John Yankello placed 90th in 26:04 for the Panthers.

The challenging course featured some of the best competition that High Point will face this season. North Carolina won the meet with 58 points followed by Eastern Kentucky (76), Virginia (101) and Duke (104). Auburn placed fifth with 106 points followed by Liberty (141), Virginia Tech (197), William & Mary (205) and California (226). High Point placed 10th with 239 points followed by George Mason (294), Ole Miss (337) and UNC Greensboro (371).

The course is the same site as the NCAA Southeast Regional, which will be held on Nov. 15. After racing three weekends in a row, High Point will be off until Oct. 18 when the team races in the Blue Ridge Open in Boone, N.C.