Men's Cross Country | 11/15/2014 5:07:00 PM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Clark Teuscher, Sports Information Director, 630-637-5302

WINNECONE, Wis. (Nov. 15, 2014) - Just as it did in its previous visit to the same course, the North Central College men's cross country team dominated from start to finish in Saturday's NCAA Division III Midwest Region Championship, placing all seven runners in the top 20 finishers and topping the 38-team field for the seventh straight year at Lake Breeze Golf Course.

The top-ranked Cardinals established position near the front of the 265-man pack early and held fast, turning in a team score of 51 points. The No. 2-ranked University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire was a distant second with 108, followed by the fifth-ranked University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (110), 10th-ranked Washington University in St. Louis (135) and the 22nd-ranked University of Wisconsin-Stout (158).

Washington's Andrew Padgett led throughout Saturday's race and won the individual championship with a time of 23 minutes, 56.5 seconds on the 8,000-meter (five-mile) course. He wound up nearly nine seconds faster than his closest pursuer, Alex Cieselski of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

For the first time this season, North Central was led by Aron Sebhat, who closed with the second-fastest final 1,000 meters in the field and placed fourth overall in 24:10.2. Travis Morrison, who tailed Padgett early in the race, wound up sixth in 24:14.2 and Troy Kelleher finished just outside the top 10 in 11th place (24:27.0).

Zach Plank crossed the line 14th (24:32.2), while Ryan Root placed 16th (24:36.7) to complete the Cardinals' scoring. Tim Vazquez turned in an 18th-place showing (24:42.7) and Ben Dickshinski finished 20th in 24:46.0. North Central's spread of 26.5 seconds between its first and fifth scoring runners was the second-smallest in the field.

The Cardinals have now won the last seven Midwest Region titles and 27 of the 37 regional championships since the regional format was introduced in 1978. North Central has also claimed one of the region's two automatic bids to next weekend's Division III National Championship.

The national championship will be held Saturday at The Golf Center at Kings Island in Mason, Ohio. The men's race is scheduled to begin at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time.