Men's Cross Country Wins Second Straight Event, Takes First Place at The Master's Invitational

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's cross country team took first place for the second straight week, defeating host Master's University and a five-runner contingent from UCLA, to win The Master's Invitational on Saturday morning at Santa Clarita's Central Park.

The Stags, who are ranked No. 7 in the nation in Divsion III, were coming off a dominant win at the Coyote Challenge, hosted by CSU San Bernardino last week, in which they earned 16 points, just one over the minimum. This week, with a more challenging field that included UCLA, CMS wasn't quite that dominant, but still had five of the top 17 runners to finish with 46 points, while The Master's finished with 75 points and UCLA with 99. 

Junior Stevie Steinberg and senior Thomas D'Anieri earned top-five finishes for the Stags out of 312 runners in the field, coming in fourth place and fifth place, respectively. Steinberg crossed the line in 24:58.1, followed three seconds later by D'Anieri in 25:01.6. 

Sophomore Miles Christensen was the third Stag to cross the line in eighth place, finishing in 25:09.6, while sophomore Kyril Van Schendel, who has won the last two SCIAC Athlete of the Week honors, was the 12th-place finisher in 25:21.4. Junior Will Kimball was the final scorer for CMS, coming in 17th place with a time of 25:32.4 to cap off the 46-point total and the first-place finish for CMS. 

The Stags also had several other strong efforts outside of the top five. Senior Wilson Ives came in 27th place in 25:52.8, while sophomore Adam Wilkinson (25:59.4) and junior Daniel Sealand (26:05.3) earned top-50 finishes in 32nd and 38th place, respectively. First-years Noah Battaglia and Daniel Krasemann crossed the line together in the top 50 as well in 48th and 49th place, while first-year Declan O'Neill (70th), sophomore Jake Gill (77th), first-year Gus Albach (88th), sophomore Alexander Hirsch (89th), senior Bennett Mountain (93rd) and first-year Kai Dettman (97th) were in the top 100 out of over 300 runners. 

CMS will now have a week off before returning to action on Saturday, Oct. 12, when it travels to San Diego to take part in the Triton Invitational.