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CARY. N.C. --
Brian Ulrich and
Jason Leonard narrowly missed earning All-Region honors after leading the Slippery Rock University men's cross country team to a fourth-place finish in the NCAA Division II Atlantic Regional Championships Saturday at WakeMed Soccer Park.
Lock Haven shocked the field, including conference champion and defending regional champion Shippensburg, to win the title with a team score of just 28 points. Shippensburg finished second in 49 points to earn the region's final team berth to the national championships. Edinboro placed third with 56 points, followed by Slippery Rock with 182 and East Stroudsburg with 201 to round out the top-five.
Teams from the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference occupied the top-six positions in the final team standings in the 28-team meet.
Ulrich bounced back from a difficult performance at the PSAC meet two weeks ago to lead Slippery Rock Saturday. He finished the 10,000-meter course in 33:00.4 to place 26th, missing All-Region honors by just one position.
Leonard also returned to form Saturday, putting in one of his best efforts of the season to finish right behind Ulrich in 27th-place with a time of 33:01.1.
Freshman
Travis Arrigoni, competing in his first collegiate race over 8,000-meters, handled the increased distance admirably with a 34th-place finish in 33:39.5.
Fellow freshman
Morgan Elliott also handled the increased distance impressively, crossing the line in 44th-place in 33:59.3 to be The Rock's fourth finisher.
Alex Koksal rounded out the scorers for SRU with a 51st-place finish in 34:07.4.
Eric Geddis finished 59th in 34:28.2 and
Michael Beegle placed 91st in 35:31.5 to round out Slippery Rock's participants in the 187-runner field.
Saturday's performance was a marked improvement for Slippery Rock, which finished seventh in the Regional Championships last season.
With the fall cross country season now over, The Rock men's distance runners will turn their focus to the indoor track and field season, which begins Dec. 10 at Kent State.