Led by junior Travis Arrigoni’s fifth place finish, the Slippery Rock men’s cross country team placed third at the Lock Haven Invitational Saturday.
Carnegie Mellon University and Lock Haven finished as the first and second overall teams ahead of the Rock. The Penn State Club team and West Chester finished in fourth and fifth place.
Arrigoni covered the 8,000 meter course in 25:53.
Junior Michael Beegle placed 16th in 26:17, followed by classmate Morgan Elliott in 26th at 26:33.
Sophomore Jaron Martin placed 31st with a time of 26:51 and freshman Steve Green finished 35th in 26:55 to cap the scorers for the Green and White.
Sophomore Theo Reynolds placed 37th in 27:02 and senior Alex Koksal was 43rd in 27:19.
After finishing third at Lock Haven last weekend, the squad is using the week off from competition to train and recover for the SRU Invitational October 6 at Cooper’s Lake Campground.
Injuries and illness plagued the Rock during their other home meet earlier in September, but this time around, they appear to be fully healthy and ready to go.
“With two weeks in between each race, we recover, then begin training, then recover before the meet.” said head coach John Papa.
When it comes to preparing for next weekend’s meet, senior captain Eric Geddis said it’s all about balance between working out and resting up.
“I throw in a couple of good workouts, some easy days, and a lot of rest,” Geddis said.
The Rock still has some work to do to catch up to some of their conference foes. Currently, they are fifth in the PSAC behind Lock Haven, Edinboro, East Stroudsburg, and Shippensburg.
“We’ll be working hard and following the training plan to get us to peak at PSAC’s and Regionals,” Arrigoni said. “These two weeks until our next meet are our last chance to put in some hard strength work before we start the championship season.”
The SRU Invitational will be a vital week for the Slippery Rock squad to show the rest of the conference what they can do before the postseason begins.
The PSAC Championships will be held in Slippery Rock on October 20, also at Cooper’s Lake Campground. After PSACs, the team will prepare for Regionals.
