Louisville, KY – A season filled with new highs reached another one on Saturday morning as the Johns Hopkins men's cross-country team, led by junior Jared Pangallozzi, earned its best ever finish at the NCAA Championships, finishing fifth with 208 points.
 
A program continuing to climb under Bobby Van Allen, the men have now garnered a top-10 finish in three of the last four seasons, the previous best an eighth-place finish in 2016.
 
Starting back at their time trial meet in mid-August, Van Allen knew this group had a chance to be special. The 20^th year head coach believed this could be the best men's team he's had in his program's history. In terms of NCAA success, at the very least, he was right.
 
"We would've loved to get onto the podium, but we're thrilled and satisfied with what we were able to do today, earning the best-finish in program history," Van Allen said.

As for Pangallozzi, what a season it was.  He raced to a fourth-place finish today, the best finish in school history at the NCAA Championships.  Running among the top 10 throughout the race, he steadily worked his way into the top five and clocked in at 24:31.7.  After finishing 12^th at the NCAA meet a year ago, Pangallozzi continued to flourish as a junior.  He adds his top-five finish today to his Centennial Conference individual title and runner-up showing at the NCAA Mideast Regional Championship.
 
"Jared was simply unbelievable. To run the time he did in the conditions the runners faced was top-to-bottom one of the best races I've seen and he proved that he's one of the top runners in the country," Van Allen said.
 
Battling difficult conditions after three days of rain in Louisville, Johns Hopkins placed three more runners in the top-70, finishing with 208 points, 14 ahead of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and 15 behind Washington University. Declan Hines continued his strong finish to the season, finishing 43^rd, running the course in 25:02.0. Junior Conner Delahanty finished 63^rd in 25:12.2 and sophomore Sean Laidlaw grabbed a 67^th-place finish for Hopkins, finishing in 25:14.9. Patrick Dye rounded out the top-five for JHU, finishing 81^st in the race, clocking in at 25:21.1.  

A group of Hopkins fans made the trip to Louisville to cheer on the Blue Jays. Van Allen believed that the large group of alumni, parents and teammates was a driving force, helping keep his team energized through the conditions.

"That group of fans was the biggest we've had come support us at nationals. I believe that all those fans waving Hopkins flags was crucial to our success this afternoon," Van Allen said. 
 
The Blue Jays used a late push, dropping 20 points from the 6.4K mark to the 8K mark to move up from seventh to fifth in the race. During that stretch, Pangallozzi picked off two runners, jumping into the top-five while Laidlaw jumped 12 spots and Dye was able to pass 22 runners to give crucial points to the Blue Jays.
 
"We really wanted to focus on the final 2K and our guys did just that. We were able to pick off enough runners to gain some key points to help us get into the top-five," Van Allen said.
 
Pomona-Pitzer Colleges earned the overall championship, scoring 164 points, 18 ahead of perennial powerhouse North Central (Ill.). Top-ranked Williams finished third, just one point behind North Central, and 10 points ahead of Washington University.