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The Syracuse men’s cross country team placed 30th of 30 teams in the 2021 NCAA Cross Country Championships on Monday in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Due to the pandemic, the championships had been postponed from their usual date in November.

This is the team’s worst finish since 2008, when it failed to qualify for the championship. After winning the national title in 2015, Syracuse has regressed every single year since then, including bottom five finishes in 2018 (26th) and 2019 (27th).

Syracuse was ranked 25th but was beat by four unranked teams and three teams ranked lower. No. 26 Southern Utah finished ninth, and Duke was the highest-placing unranked team, finishing 16th.

The Orange did not place a runner in the top 100. Senior Joe Dragon (31:56.8) paced the Orange, finishing in 128th. Matthew Scrape (32:27.0) and Dominic Hockenbury (32:37.9) placed in the top 200. Silas Derfel (32:52.6) and Nathan Henderson (32:57.8) also scored for SU. JP Trojan, who placed fourth in the 5,000-meter at the Atlantic Coast Conference Championships two weeks ago, did not finish.

This is the third consecutive year that the women’s team did not qualify after the Orange placed sixth and fifth respectively at the NCAA Northeast Regionals in 2018 and 2019 and did not receive an at-large bid.

Amanda Vestri received an individual qualification after finishing second overall in the ACC Championships in October. She was the first female Syracuse runner to participate in the national championship since Paige Stoner individually qualified in 2017.

Vestri was as high as 13th near the beginning of the race and was in 31st at the halfway mark, but she started slowing down near the end and finished in 71st with a time of 21:17.9. Her 71st place finish is a personal best at the NCAA Cross Country Championships — an improvement from 90th and 160th place finishes during her freshman and sophomore seasons at Iowa State.

Published on March 15, 2021 at 3:46 pm

Contact Connor: cpignate@syr.edu