By Eric Brod

Senior Writer

The Bison men’s cross country team finished sixth at last weekend’s Patriot League Championships. The Orange and Blue finished with 130 points, while Navy defended its league title with 43 points.

Once again this season,the Bison had a different runner leading the pack. This time it was Dave Brown ’12, who completed the eight-kilometer course in 25:49, finishing 23rd overall.

Brown was very happy with his performance.

“The workouts I did in the weeks preceding last weekend had gone very well but I had not yet translated them to good performances in races,” he said.  “Basically, I knew I was as fit as I was going to be for [the Championship] and whatever I had in me would have to suffice.”

Following Brown was Joshua Clark ’11, who finished 26th in 25:57.

Rounding out the scoring for the Bison were Robert Yamnicky ’13, who placed 28th, Charles Murphy ’11, who placed 30th, and Evan Novakowski ’11, who placed 33rd.

Navy’s Andrew Hanko took the individual title in 24:22.

“Even though our men finished sixth, I was pleased with how they ran the race.  They really ran a great final 3K to make it close among third through sixth,” head coach Kevin Donner said. “We have had a lot of adversity this year with sickness and injury as well as top runners graduating and transferring. We essentially had a whole new team compared with last year.”

The team lacked the one dominant runner it needed. Only 19 seconds separated the top six Bison finishers, but no runner pulled away.

“We are lacking a front runner, so even though our guys packed great, we were a little too far behind,” Donner said.

The men return to action Nov. 13 for the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Championships in University Park, Pa.