College Men’s Cross Country Results – Guilford’s Goncarovs Leads 1-2-4 Finish at ODAC Championships; Quakers Place 5th

FARMVILLE, Va. – Guilford College senior Andris Goncarovs (Ithaca, N.Y./ Lehman Alternative Community School (SUNY Buffalo)) held off teammate Chad Norton (Walled Lake, Mich./Walled Lake) to win the Old Dominion Athletic Conference Men’s Cross Country individual Championship Saturday at Manor Golf Course.

The Quakers’ David Cason (Clemmons, N.C./West Forsyth) crossed the line in fourth place, which helped Guilford finish fifth in the 11-team meet.
Bridgewater College placed its top-five runners among the first 14 finishers to easily win the team title with 50 points. Lynchburg College (88), Washington and Lee University (97) and Eastern Mennonite University (100) rounded out the top four. Guilford tallied 109 points.

Goncarovs ran the eight-kilometer race in 26 minutes, 19.50 seconds, less than a second in front of Norton (26:20.40). Bridgewater’s Luke Sohl followed right behind in 26:22.80 before the Quakers’ Cason finished in 26:31.90. Each of the top-seven runners in the 102-man field earned First Team All-ODAC recognition, including Goncarovs, who was voted the league’s Runner of the Year. He joins Derick Kosgei ’12 as the two Quakers so honored. Goncarovs also joins Kosgei as Guilford’s winners of the ODAC individual title.

Guilford freshman Nick Reynolds (Selkirk, N.Y./Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk) crossed the line in 30:29.60 in 52nd place and teammate Patrick Westervelt (Oak Ridge, N.C./Northwest Guilford) was 67th in 31:34.90 to round out the Quakers’ scoring.

Coach Danny Cash’s team will run at the NCAA Division III South/Southeast Regional Championships in Newport News, Va., Nov. 16 with hopes of qualifying for the NCAA Championships Nov. 23 in Hanover, Ind.