GRAND ISLAND, N.Y. – St. Bonaventure posted three top-five finishers as the Bonnies men's cross country team produced their strongest result in recent memory at the Little Three Championship, finishing second, just three points behind Canisius Friday evening at Beaver Island State Park.

Canisius claimed the team title with 33 points, just holding off St. Bonaventure which tallied 36 points. Niagara was third at 63 points.

Racing on a course that was slick in spots following a rain storm earlier in the afternoon, junior Aiden Scattergood placed second out of 49 competitors with a 5K time of 15:32.89. After leading in the early stages of the race, he finished behind only Niagara's Braden York (15:27.26) and claimed his top career finish in the event.

Two of Bona's underclassmen impressed as well: freshman Sam Tomm made his collegiate debut by finishing fourth at 15:59.62 and a time that will jump to fifth individually in program history.

Sophomore William McCarthy took fifth overall in Friday's meet just behind his teammate, crossing the stripe in 16:02.96. He will move to sixth in the program record book.

In all, the Bonnies recorded five new program individual top-20 marks. Along with Tomm and McCarthy, Joshua Lopez (16:14.83), Casey Malloy (16:15.41) and Ethan Luce (16:26.80) all recorded new personal best times to leap into the Bona's record book.

QUOTES FROM COACH BOB MACFARLANE

"Overall the team did very well. We have just to learn to attack a little bit better in the middle of the pack. We were pleasantly surprised with how a couple of our freshmen stepped up. Sam (Tomm) especially did well."

"We call this meet a rust buster, it gets us ready for the rest of the season and the way the team performed tonight really bodes well for the rest of the fall. We got the first race jitters out, but we know there is still room to improve. The program has come a long way to be right there to compete with Canisius who has traditionally been really strong and we had a real chance to come out on top tonight and just came up a little short."

"One thing we saw is that the team went out too fast in the first mile for the most part. That was pretty much across the board for both the men and the women's team. It goes back to getting caught up in the first race and those are things we can work on going forward."

UP NEXT
St. Bonaventure returns to action Saturday, Sept. 21 at the University of Rochester Yellowjacket Invitational.

BONNIES RESULTS
2. Aiden Scattergood – 15:32.89
4. Sam Tomm – 15:59.62
5. William McCarthy – 16:02.96
12. Joshua Lopez – 16:14.83
13. Casey Malloy – 16:15.41
18. Ethan Luce – 16:26.80
19. Alex Ryan – 16:27.91
23. Nathan Sikorski – 16:43.11
24. Brendan Chapple – 16:44.80
25. Carter Stevens – 16:45.50
27. Jared Deno – 16:50.49
29. James Fitzmaurice – 16:55.21
30. Aiden Konetsky – 16:52.73
32. Colin McCarthy – 17:06.73
33. Kevin Renner – 17:14.29
34. Owen Noecker – 17:15.21
35. Lucas Catarella – 17:15.73
37. Blake Wenger – 17:39.52
39. Layne Haught – 17:53.96
40. Tyler Schott – 18:00.00
43. Nick Cribbet – 18:08.41
 

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