Men Finish Ninth At New England Championships

10/17/2000

Terrier freshman Jochen Dieckfoss (Tubingen, Germany) finished seventh at the New England Men's Cross Country Championships at Franklin Park October 13th, but he was the lone bright spot for B.U. which finished ninth in the field on 42 teams.

Dieckfoss was timed in 24:30, which was more than a minute behind winner Keith Kelly of Providence, who was clocked in 23:39. Kelly was clearly the class of the field as he led the Friars to the overall team title.

However, Dieckfoss, who tripped at the start because of the large field of 278 runners, was just 24 seconds behind second-place finisher Hamish Thorpe, also of Providence.

Providence had the first-, second-, third-, fifth-, and sixth-place finishers to wind up with 17 points. To show just how one-sided the team race was, Keene State was second with 119 points.

The Terriers ended with 322 points, 46 points behind the University of Connecticut, which finished eighth with 278 points.

"Dieckfoss ran well,' said Terrier cross country coach Bruce Lehane. "After him, it was a struggle."

Junior captain Jason Borbet (Smithtown, NY) was the second Terrier to cross the finish line, as was 58th overall in a time of 25:50.

Next, in order, came junior Paul Ryan (Waltham, VT), 64th, 25:53; sophomore Liam Revell (Belleville, ONT, Canada), 81st, 26:06; and sophomore Jordan Jones (Medford), 112th, 26:31.

Two other Terriers competed, but their scores did not count toward the team total. They were junior John Wiley (Palo Alto, CA), 136th, 26:50, and sophomore Rob Wong (Fayetteville, NY), 191st, 27:36.

One of the key reasons the Terriers had a sub-par performance was three of the team's top runners were not able to compete.

Sophomore Paul Morrice (Auckland, NZ) was in Chile to represent his native New Zealand at the World Junior Championships. Freshman Dan Coval (Holland, PA) suffered strained calves at the Meet of Champions September 30th at Iona College. Finally, junior Frederik Naalsund (Ski, Norway) has been hobbled by hip problems.

"Our next big meet is October 28th at the America East championships," said Lehane. "Hopefully, everybody will be back and healthy. We have not won the conference championship in two years, and we really need to win it."

The University of Maine will pose one of the biggest challenges to the Terriers, as they showed at the New England's. The Black Bears finished fifth at the meet with 193 points, more than 100 points better than the Terriers.