Bangor, Maine (Saxl Park) - The No. 23 nationally ranked Bates men's cross country team won its third straight Maine State Meet and its sixth in the past eight years on Saturday, besting Colby with four top-eight individual finishes.
Bates, ranked No. 2 in the East Region, scored 24 points for first place. The Mules, No. 4 in the region, finished second with 36 points. The region's No. 6 team, Bowdoin, took third in the meet with 81 points.
Rounding out the team scoring were: Southern Maine (130 points), Maine Maritime (157), Maine-Farmington (164), Univ. of New England (202), Husson (226), Thomas College (254), Maine-Presque Isle (259), and CMCC (321).
Colby's Tyler Morris secured the individual championship with a first-place time of 24:15.3 on Saxl Park's 8K course. The Bobcats proceeded to lock down the next for positions, topped by runner-up
Eli Boesch Dining (Sr.-Concord, N.H.), who authored a second-place mark of 24:49.2.
Ned Farrington (Jr.-Cohasset, Mass.) (24:51.5),
Ryan Smith (Sr.-Westport, Conn.) (24:54.6) and
Victor Kering (Jr.-Eldoret, Kenya) (25:02.0) followed by taking positions 3-5, respectively.
Sam Kartsonis (Jr.-Harriton, Pa.) (10th, 25:45.2),
Andrew Mottur (So.-Rumford, R.I.) (12th-25:57.9), and
Gabe Coffey (Sr.-Bangor, Maine) (16th-26:13.2) closed out the Bobcats' Top-7 in the final standings.
Bates will have to wait two weeks to get back at it as the garnet and white competes in the Connecticut College Invitational (Harkness State Park-Waterford, Conn.) on Saturday, Oct. 15.
