Eric Van Der Els Takes 4th at BIG EAST Title Race; Huskies finish 4th
Cary, N.C. – The UConn men's cross-country team took home a fourth-place finish in their return to their old conference at Friday's BIG EAST Cross Country Championship Presented by Jeep at the WakeMed Cross Country Course in Cary, N.C.
The Huskies were led by senior Eric Van Der Els (Norwalk, Conn.) who garnered all-conference honors thanks to his fourth-place finish on the 8K course. The Butler Bulldogs took home the team title, beating the 10-team field with 35 total points. Georgetown took second with 52 points and Villanova was third with 54. The Huskies took the fourth spot with 111 points.
"We ran to win today," stated Director of Cross Country and Track & Field Greg Roy. "We were there, made a hard move at a mile and fell off after that. We ran to win, in a very tough, tough conference. Those top teams, they are tough to beat."
Van Der Els is an all-conference runner for the second-straight season and his fourth-place finish came in a time of 23:17.4. The rest of the Husky top-five finishers took finished in a pack in the 25th through 29th spots.
Junior James Maniscalco (Fairfield, Conn.) was 25th with a time of 24:05.9 followed right on his heels by classmate Will Brisman (Fairfield, Conn.) in 26th (24:06.3) and senior Sean Parker (Bridgewater, Conn.) in 27th at 24:07.6. Sophomore Kevin Cawley (St James, N.Y.) took 29th overall with a time of 24:11.9.
"We competed very hard," said Roy. "Eric did a great job for us, really happy for him. I am really proud of us; we did what we wanted to down there. Our guys really went after it, we tried to win it but just fell short.
Players Mentioned
Players Mentioned
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