No. 2 Orange Win 4th-Straight Conference Title in Convincing Fashion

Friday, October 30

Tallahassee, Fla.

9 a.m.

Syracuse University

ACC Championships

No. 2 Orange Win 4th-Straight Conference Title in Convincing Fashion

10/30/2015 10:37:00 AM | Cross Country

Syracuse puts three runners in the top-five

The No. 2 Syracuse men's cross country team placed three runners in the top-five and all-five scorers in the top-20 to claim its fourth-straight conference title (third ACC) and sixth league crown in seven years in dominant fashion on Friday.

The Orange men were led by Justyn Knight, who finished second after being just edged by Thomas Curtin of Virginia Tech down the stretch of the 8k course, in a time of 23:24.3. Colin Bennie (23:31.4) took fourth and last year's champion Martin Hehir (23:37.4) finished fifth.

The trio has finished in the top-six of each of their races this season.

Syracuse finished with 46 points as a team, well ahead of No. 12 NC State (95), No. 7 Virginia (115), No. 18 Virginia Tech (120) and Louisville (130) which rounded out the top-five.

The Syracuse scoring was rounded out by Philo Germano (15th/24:02.6) and Dan Lennon (20th/24:13.7) joining Knight, Bennie and Hehir in earning All-ACC honors.

"We pretty much knew that Shaun Thompson from Duke and Thomas Curtin from Virginia Tech were going to force the issue a bit and our guys just wanted to sit on that and be dictated to for the first 5k," said head coach Chris Fox. "We went two, four, five today and that's been happening all season. Colin Bennie probably ran his best race ever today for fourth place and Justyn has come up short by a half second in each of his last two invitationals, but I think he'll be right in the mix at nationals."

Joe Kush (29th/24:29.2), Joel Hubbard (35th/24:37.6), Shawn Wilson (36th/24:38.4), Juris Silenieks (46th/24:55.6) and TJ Hornberger (53rd/25:00.8) rounded out the field for the Orange.

On the women's side, Margo Malone reached the podium for the second-straight season, taking third overall in a time of 20:17.6. The No. 16 Orange women finished fourth overall with 141 points.

No. 7 Virginia took the women's title with 71 points ahead of No. 8 NC State (75) and No. 17 Notre Dame (94). The Fighting Irish's Molly Seidel and Anna Rohrer took first and second respectively ahead of Malone.

Sydney Leiher (24th/20:50.8)), Shaylyn Tuite (31st/21:07.8), Stephanie Bitcon (38th/21:19.9), Rebecca Skodis (47th/21:33.1), Karina Ernst (48th/21:35.1) and Cassia Hameline (21:39.0) rounded out the top-seven for the Orange women, who improved four spots from last season's 8th-place finish.

Next up, Syracuse will head to the NCAA Northeast Regional on Friday, Nov. 13 at Noon in Chestnut Hill, Mass.