Men's Cross Country Wins Title at Detroit Mercy Invitational

Saturday, September 8

Northville, Mich.

11:45 a.m.

Bucknell University

Detroit Mercy Invite

Photo by: Marc Hagemeier

Men's Cross Country Wins Title at Detroit Mercy Invitational

9/8/2018 4:49:00 PM | Men's Cross Country

The Bison Have Won the Event Five Times

RESULTS

*Individual places included in story are the place in relation to ALL runners and not the runners' scored place.

NORTHVILLE, Mich. – Five Bucknell runners finished in the top 13 overall and in the top 10 among scored runners to lead the Bison men's cross country team to the title at the Detroit Mercy Invitational on Saturday. The meet, which was started by Bucknell head coach Kevin Donner in 1987 while coach of the Titans' women's cross country team, was held at Cass Benton Park for the 32^nd consecutive year.

Bucknell won the title in the five-team field by a large margin. The Bison posted a score of 38, while Detroit Mercy was a distant second with 65. Rounding out the competing teams were Albion (70), Eastern Michigan (86), and Oakland (89). Macomb Community College and Rochester College also had runners in the field but did not factor into the team score.

Sophomore Connor McMenamin was Bucknell's fastest runner for the second straight week, taking sixth with a time of 20:46 on the four-mile course. Detroit Mercy's Ben Kendell, a three-time First Team All-Horizon League runner, won the race in 19:39, finishing 38 seconds faster than the runner-up and breaking the meet record by six seconds.

Freshman Brendan O'Toole had a great race for the Bison, joining McMenamin in the top 10 with an eighth-place finish. He clocked in with a time of 20:52.
"We held out Jacob Stupak by design, but the others looked solid," Donner said. "Connor didn't have a great day, but I was happy with how he hung in there for a low score. O'Toole ran great again."

The rest of Bucknell's top five runners finished in consecutive order starting with senior Chad Sussman in 11^th. Junior Brian Dengler was 12^th, and sophomore Evan Minor took 13^th. Seven Bison runners finished in the top 20, including freshman Ryan Miele in 17^th and sophomore Joseph Stark in 20^th. There were 85 runners in the field.

"We had very solid efforts from Sussman and Dengler," Donner said. "Minor opened up this week and was solid. We had much better improvement from our depth compared to last week."

The Bison have now won five titles at the Detroit Mercy Invitational. The others came in 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2016. They did not compete at the meet last season.

Bucknell will have the next weekend off and now sets its sights on the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown, hosted by Boston College on Friday, Sept. 21.