Trinity Men's Cross Country Heads To Indiana For Third Straight Trip To National Meet
Four Bantams Earn All-New England Honors at Regionals
Hartford, Conn., Nov. 18 - The Trinity College men's cross country team, coached by George Suitor, has been awarded an at-large bid to the 2008 NCAA Division III National Championships on Saturday, Nov. 22 at Hanover University in Indiana. The men's race is scheduled for 11 a.m. local time at the Ayres Athletic Complex. The Bantams, ranked No. 3 in New England and No. 18 in the nation, earned a third straight invitation to the NCAA Division III National Championship Meet with an impressive, third-place finish in the NCAA Division III New England Regional Championships on Saturday at Williams College. The New England Top Ten: 1. Williams, 2. Amherst, 3. Trinity (Conn.), 4. Brandeis, 5. Bowdoin, 6. Middlebury, 7. Keene State, 8. MIT, 9. Southern Maine, 10. Connecticut College. Trinity finished 29th last fall and 31st in 2006 in the NCAA Division III National Meet.
Trinity senior co-captains Hunter Norte (Ellington, Conn.) and Sam Moorhead (Dedham, Mass.) came in third and seventh Saturday with respective times of 26:09 and 26:24.4 in horrendous rainy and windy conditions. Trinity finished fourth with 143 points, 15 ahead of fourth-place Brandeis, and was selected as one of three teams from the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) to compete in the National Championship Meet. Williams College won the men's race with 36 points and Amherst College was second with 122. Freshman Michael Burnstein (Brookline, Mass.) came in 13th-place with a time of 26:34.7, followed by sophomores Brendan Powers (Middleton, Mass.) and Wesley Halstead (Woodbridge, Conn.) in 31st and 89th, respectively, at 27:05.8 and 28:13.1. Norte, the 2006 New England Champion, finished just under 17 seconds behind the first-place finisher and six seconds behind the second-place runner. Norte, Moorhead, Burnstein, and Powers all earned All-New England recognition for their impressive performances.
Norte, Moorhead, Powers, and Burnstein have each earned top-five finishes in races this fall. Norte and Burnstein tied for the Trinity Invitational title, while Norte finished third at New Englands, and fourth in the James Early Invitational at Westfield State, the Saratoga Invitational, and the NESCAC Championships. Moorhead, who has missed time with injuries this season, placed third in the James Early Invitational and Powers came in fifth place in the Trinity Invitational. Powers has a career-best time of 25:35 and Burnstein has a career-best time of 25:33. Junior Ryan Lane (Weston, Conn.), sophomores Halstead and Steve Garner (Yarmouthport, Mass.) and freshmen Wilson McGrail (Wayland, Mass.), and Matt Eremita (South Windsor, Conn.) have all made contributions this fall, boasting season-best times of 26:15, 25:42, 26:16, 26:38, and 26:34, respectively.
