TOWSON, Md. --- Moravian University senior Nathan Hajel has been honored as the Landmark Conference Men's Cross Country Athlete of the Week for his performance last week.

Hajel led the Hounds individually in the 43rd Annual Mike Woods Invitational hosted by SUNY Geneseo as he placed 24th of the 492 runners with a PR time of 25:02.4 on the 8,000-meter course. Hajel's time is the ninth best in program history, lowering his PR by three seconds, and is tenth on the Landmark Conference Top Ten. The top six finishing teams in the race are ranked in the latest United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Top 30 including No. 7 RPI, No. 8 SUNY Geneseo, No. 9 Carnegie Mellon, No. 24 John Carroll University, No. 28 The University of Mount Union and No. 30 Moravian, who were fifth of the 33 teams and finished ahead of Mount Union by 31 points.

"In a big meet like we were at, we needed our top runners to step up and as usual, we were able to rely on Nate," stated Director of Cross Country and Track & Field Jesse Baumann. "He went out conservatively in about 55th through the first kilometer of the race and then steadily moved up into the mid 20s in the last kilometers. We were monitoring the in-race team scores through the live results and conveying to him what needed to be done, especially for us to beat Mt. Union and SUNY Brockport. Nate did an exceptional job of responding and giving our team the boost we needed to ensure a top 5 team finish and to beat another ranked team this fall. It wound up being a lifetime best for him, and it great seeing him yet again prove that he can run with some of the better runners in the NCAA."

The Hounds are scheduled to return to action on Saturday, November 2 when the squad travels Union Canal Tunnel Park in Lebanon for the 2024 Landmark Conference Championships hosted by Elizabethtown College with the men's race set to begin at 12:00 p.m. as Moravian looks for its fourth straight Landmark Conference title.