Bourbonnais, Ill. - The Saint Xavier University men's cross country team headed to Bourbonnais, Ill., on Friday, September 10, to take part in the Midwest Classic hosted by Olivet Nazarene University. The Cougars finished the 12-team meet in second place overall (69 points) behind only host Olivet Nazarene (32 points). Individually, the meet was led by Andy Ashenden from Concordia University (Wis.) with a time of 25:26 for the 8K (8,000 meters) course. Leading the way for SXU for the second consecutive week was freshman Brian Corcoran (Chicago, Ill./Brother Rice) in third place overall out of 137 total runners with a 26:07 clocking.

Corcoran was closely followed by junior Matt Rychel (Tinley Park, Ill./Andrew) in ninth place with a time of 26:34. A trio of three freshmen runners trailed Rychel led by Chris Shellenberger (Crown Point, Ind./Crown Point) in 16^th place at 26:57, Chris Sarna (Palos Park, Ill./Stagg) in 20^th place at 27:03 and Shane Kenney (Porter, Ind./Chesterton) in 21^st place with a time of 27:11. The closing scorers for the Cougars were junior Dan Hasty (Oak Lawn, Ill./Brother Rice) in 26^th place with a time of 27:32 and senior Roy Witty (Mount Greenwood, Ill./Marist) at No. 27 with a 27:32 clocking. Saint Xavier University men's cross country coach Ed McAllister was all smiles after the race.

"I was very happy with the way that we performed Friday," said McAllister. "We retained a solid pack of runners for the first three miles. Since this was the first time that our freshmen had run the complete 8K distance, there was a bit of uncertainty. However, I felt that our runners came through well and made up some serious ground in the fifth mile. Corcoran ran another stellar race as did three of our other freshmen (Shellenberger, Sarna and Kenney). As our young guys gain experience, they will continue to improve."

SXU will split their squad this weekend with some runners going to the National Catholic Championships at University of Notre Dame (Ind.) on Friday. The remainder of the squad will run at the Falcon Invite at Concordia University (Wis.) on Saturday.