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HAVERFORD, Pa. – The fourth-ranked Haverford College men's cross country team captured its fifth straight Centennial Conference championship on its home course on Saturday afternoon, battling rainy and windy conditions to edge No. 6 Johns Hopkins at the Alumni Cross Country Course. The title is the 23rd for the Fords in the 26 year history of the Centennial Conference, extending a run of conference meet dominance that has lasted more than two decades under head coach Tom Donnelly.
Haverford scored 34 points, narrowly besting the Blue Jays of Johns Hopkins, who scored 35. Dickinson finished third with 79 points, while Swarthmore (137 points) and Muhlenberg (151 points) rounded out the top five team finishers.
Senior Greg Morgan paced the Fords, finishing second overall with a time of 25:18.8 while senior Ryan Herlihy was right behind in 25:29.2 for a third-place finish. Graham Peet crossed in sixth in 25:36.8, while Dylan Gearinger was eighth in 25:41.7.
Junior David Watt was Haverford's fifth scorer, narrowly missing All-Conference designation with a 15th place finish in 26:18.4. Junior Sam McCalpin finished 18th in 26:24.8, while First year Jamie Moreland was named the Centennial Conference Rookie of the Year after crossing in 22nd with a time of 26:41.2 to round out the top seven finishers for Haverford.
Race Highlights
• Off the gun, it was Haverford and Hopkins working hard to get into tight packs and work their way around the muddy course. Eric Herrmann of Dickinson was able to pull ahead of the pack and take first overall with a time of 25:13.5.
• It was the Fords and Blue Jays going back-and-forth for positioning as the two rivals exchanged positions and the overall team lead throughout the race. Greg Morgan and Ryan Herlihy of Haverford were able to pull away for the next two spots and Jared Pangallozzi came in fourth with a time of 25:32.2 while teammate Andrew King crossed the line right behind him with a time of 25:33.3.
• Haverford and Hopkins' runners continued to go back and forth looking to gain important finishing positions as another Ford crossed the line in sixth, just a second ahead of Scott Pourshalchi in seventh. Another Ford crossed the line in eighth before two more Blue Jays in Conner Delahanty and Alex Doran came across the finish line. Delahanty finished just under five seconds out of the eighth spot in the race.
• Ollie Hickson finished in 12th as the Blue Jays hoped to claim their first title since 2013 and Vipul Bhatmade a nice run to finish in 17th, but he was unable to catch David Watt of Haverford who finished in 15th.
• JHU placed all seven runners in the top-20 and all 12 Blue Jay runners finished in the top-30. Hopkins finished with an average time of 25:39, which was slightly better than Haverford who had an average time of 25:40.
• Hopkins has now finished second in five-straight seasons while the Fords have won five straight titles and 23 overall.
• This is the smallest margin of victory in conference history. The two teams also hold the record for the second and third smallest margins of victory as JHU defeated Dickinson by five points for the team's first conference title in 2013 and the Fords defeated the Blue Jays by nine points in 2016.