The New York University men's cross country team posted a fifth-place finish at Saturday's NCAA Division III Championship race, which was held at the LaVerne Gibson Cross Country Course in Terre Haute, IN.
Entering as the
#6-ranked team in the nation, the Violets totaled 220 points and missed the podium by one point as fourth-place #8 University of Wisconsin-Whitewater tallied 219.
Top-ranked University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse won the 32-team event with 77 points over the the 8k course.
With the NYU women's team taking fourth place overall, NYU posted the best combined finish of any cross country program competing on Saturday.
"The fact that we were the best combined cross country program here today is just unbelievable," said Head Coach Tyler Deck Shipley. "I'm honored to be their coach, and I appreciate the faith they have put into the program and to me as their coach."
Senior
Ryan Tobin, who has qualified for the NCAA Championship in each of his four years at NYU, capped his cross-country career by making it to the podium for the first time with 26th-place, All-American finish.
He was first across the line for the Violets with a time of 24:33.3.
The top 40 runners earn NCAA All-America honors.
"It was really tough for the team to miss the podium by only one point, but we've been consistent all year long and I'm really proud of the guys," Tobin said. "On a personal level, I'm happy about how I ran and glad to have finished where I expected. It's been super fun to have been able to run with these guys and I wouldn't change a thing."
A trio of NYU runners followed in a pack together, as
Evan Sherman (44th, 24:49.7),
Jeffrey Chen (45th, 24:50.3), and
Liam Hagerty (48th, 21:51.5) all finished within two seconds of each other.
NYU's fifth scorer was
Andrew Taylor, who took 109th place (25:14.9) in a field of 294 runners.
Also competing for NYU were
Shaurya Srivastava (246th, 26:01.1) and
Mubeen Zainul (255th, 26:16.5).
Christian Patzka of Wisconsin-Whitewater (24:01.6) won the individual title.
"The storybook ending doesn't always happen. There's no sense agonizing about falling short by a point or by a few seconds over a 25-minute race," Deck Shipley explained. "Last year, we were excited to be at the national meet and finish 16th. Now, we have a complete team and finished fifth in the country. They committed and dedicated themselves throughout the year. We can look ourselves in the mirror knowing we did things the right way."
In addition to the fifth-place national finish, the 2024 men's cross country team captured the NCAA Niagara Region Championship and the University Athletic Association (UAA) Championship.
