BETHLEHEM, Pa. --- The Moravian University men's cross country program started their 2021 season by competing at the Lehigh University Invitational that took place on the Goodman Campus in south Bethlehem Friday with the Greyhounds placing seventh of eight teams with 202 points.

How It Happened

• Senior Shane Houghton was the first Greyhound to complete the 6,000-meter course, finishing in a time of 18:55.1 to finish 29h of the 130 runners.
• Junior Liam Duffy finished below the 20-minute mark, with a 19:55.6 mark for a 65th place finish.
• Freshmen Owen Nahf and Jake Farrell finished third and fourth for Moravian, with Nahf turning in a time of 20:07.9 and Farrell finishing in 20:18.0 in their first collegiate race.
• A senior and two freshmen rounded out the scoring for the Greyhounds, starting with Dominic DeRafelo, who ran a 20:25.6. Geoffrey Kleinberg finished the course just four seconds behind DeRafelo, in 20:29.9 and Nathan Hajel completed the race in 20:45.0.

Quotable

• "We had a number of bright spots," commented Head Coach Jesse Baumann. "Most notably Shane Houghton who showed he has the potential to flirt with the 25:00 barrier this fall, and then our top freshmen all had outstanding days adapting to the new racing distances.  In fact, three of them set high school 5k PRs during a longer college distance today! As with our women, our team had time gaps that were much too large, and we've proven in practice we can tighten that up better than what today showed.  I'm confident with more racing opportunities and that focus on in practice that will all come together and the 1:00 gap from our 1-2 runner we saw today can become the time gaps for our 1-5 runners later in the season. Overall, we saw a lot of very encouraging signs that confirm our optimism for this season!"

Up Next for the Greyhounds

• Friday, September 17 – Moravian Invitational at Bicentennial Park, 5:30 p.m.