COLMAR MANOR, Md. --- The Moravian College men's cross country squad took second place at the 2019 Landmark Conference Championships hosted by The Catholic University of America at Colmar Manor Community Park in Maryland Saturday morning.
The 8,000-meter race began the day and saw the Greyhounds finish second of six teams with 58 points while Elizabethtown College won the title with 24 points. Moravian had three runners earn Landmark All-Conference honors with senior Gregory Jaindl earning a spot on the All-Conference First Team with a runner-up finish in 26:23.43. Freshman Darlyn Fermin also earned All-Conference First Team honors with a seventh place finish in 26:56.33, and Fermin was also named the Landmark Conference Rookie of the Year with the top finish by a first-year collegiate runner. Senior Justin Beasley-Turner was named to the All-Conference Second Team after placing 14th with a time of 27:18.29.
"Darlyn has been steadily rising throughout our XC season so we were expecting him to be in contention for this award and 1st team All-Conference," commented Director of Cross Country and Track & Field Jesse Baumann. "He was ready to really show what he was capable of when we were at Rowan two weeks ago, but his sciatic nerve flared up and forced him to abandon the race at 4k despite running exceptionally well. He's been a huge boost to our roster this year, and I think we're just touching on some of the potential we feel he's capable of. I truly feel he can contend for All-Region and the Mideast All-Freshman team in two weeks, so we have some more big goals on the horizon.
"Our plan heading into the race was to patiently position ourselves through about 3-4k and then respond as our bodies let us the last half of the race," continued Baumann. "Greg was in the top two at 4 mile and Gerstenbacher made a surge. Greg decided to hold back due to team implications and cruised to another steady 2nd place finish. He'll be in contention for individual NCAA qualifying in two weeks. We had the same plan with Justin and Gavin. Gavin is nursing the lingering effects of a foot sprain so unfortunately he wasn't at 100% and Justin had a steady race to finish on the 2nd team. He wasn't feeling 100% but fought to maintain the top 14 and earn his 2nd All-Conference award in XC. He had a lot of adversity he had to juggle this past week as well but put that aside and focused for the sake of the team this week."
Senior Gavin Kemery took 16th in 27:23.78 while sophomore Dominic DeRafelo was 19th in a time of 27:43.74 to round out Moravian's top five. The Greyhounds had two other top 30 finishes in the field of 82 runners with sophomore Michael Lerch taking 23rd in 28:02.98 and junior Peter Gingrich placing 29th in a time of 28:10.53.
The Hounds will have a week off before competing in the 2019 NCAA Division III Mideast Regional being hosted by Muhlenberg College on the Goodman Campus of Lehigh University on Saturday, November 16.
