COMPLETE RESULTS
PHOTO GALLERY

Junior Neal Darmody placed fourth overall to lead the High Point University men's cross country team to a runner-up finish at the Big South Championship on Saturday in Blacksburg, Va. Freshman Patrick Crawford was named Big South Freshman of the Year after placing sixth.

"For the guys, we knew it was going to be difficult coming in. Liberty, up front, is about as good as anyone in the country," said HPU head coach Mike Esposito. "I thought we had a good day but not a great day on the men's side. We're disappointed being second but the team competed pretty well."

Liberty won the team title behind 1-2-3 finish from Sam Chelanga, Evans Kigen and Josh Edmonds. The Flames scored 33 points followed by High Point's 45, VMI (69), Winthrop (134) and Radford (153). UNC Asheville finished sixth with 162 points followed by Coastal Carolina (205), Charleston Southern (209) and Gardner-Webb (247).

Darmody posted a time of 24:53.96 for fourth place with Crawford in sixth at 25:01.85 and senior Jevin Monds in 10th at 25:27.81. All three earned All-Conference honors. Monds was also named to the All-Academic team.

Sophomores Jacob Smith and Dakota Peachee rounded out HPU's scoring. Smith placed 12th in 25:30.04. Peachee put on a surge down the final stretch to pass VMI's Ermin Mujezinovic and Peachee took 13th in 25:44.63.

Two freshmen finished sixth and seventh for the Panthers. Jacob Roach placed 15th in a time of 25:53.05 and John Yankello took 21st in 26:22.54. Finishing it out for HPU, junior Mike Ali placed 26th in 26:47.13, Jonathan Riley took 35th in 27:15.22 and Mike Feroe placed 60th.

It was the fourth year in a row that the Panthers finished second at the Big South Championship. HPU moves on to the NCAA Southeast Regional on Nov. 13 in Louisville, Ky.