Despite the rain and mud, the Colgate Men’s Cross Country team placed 14th overall in the Brown Race at the Paul Short Invitational at Le-high University on September 28. Senior Chris Johnson, who ran in the Gold Race, put in an in-credible performance, finishing in seventh place with a personal best time of 24:20 in the 8k race.

The drizzle that began to fall halfway through the Brown Race and the muddy course condi-tions did not slow down the Raiders. Out of over 300 runners representing 33 different teams, se-nior Tim Phelps finished in 20th place and was the top finisher for Colgate with a time of 25:52, improving his time from last year by over a minute.

Finishing 31st overall and second for Colgate was first-year Michael McConville, followed by sophomore Ben Aldrich in 45th place. First-year Christopher Noda and sophomore Eric Moore also finished in the top 150, giving Colgate a total score of 385.

This was an improvement from Colgate’s 27th place finish last year. The University of Pennsyl-vania came in first in the Brown Race with a score of 47 points.

After winning the Brown Race last year, John-son was the only Raider chosen to participate in the Gold Race, a race in which usually only the most competitive Division I and III schools’ runners compete. Johnson, who is hoping to re-turn to the NCAA championships in November, was looking to assess his fitness level and ended up with a time that was a minute faster than his previous best. If Johnson had run in the Brown Race, his time would have been enough to boost the team to a fifth place finish.

Senior Mark Dennin from Georgetown was the individual champion of the Gold Race, finishing only 20 seconds before Johnson.

After his strong performance this weekend, Johnson was also given his first weekly Patriot League honor, the M-F Athletic Male Runner of the Week award.

The next Men’s race is on October 13 for the Father Laurence O’Neil Invitational in Fairfield, Connecticut. Contact Sarah Chandler at

[email protected].