High Point Places Eleventh at Commodore Classic
Nashville, TN – HPU finshed in 11^th place at the Commodore Classic at Vanderbilt. The team finished with 299 points, right behind host, Vanderbilt, who finished with 290 points. High Point finished right ahead of Georgia, the Panthers had an average race time of 26:08:00 in the Men's 8K. "Overall, I'd say it was a solid performance against a high caliber field." Head coach Mike Esposito said. "I think it was good for us to be exposed to that at this point in the year. We clearly just need to execute better as a team for us to have a shot when we get into conference time."
 
Junior El Hocine Bouchrak finished with a High Point-best time of 25:23:07, good enough for 34^th overall. Five other Panthers finished in the top 100, including two freshman runners, Austen Cave (26:19:00) and Ian Miller (26:25:00), who finished 83^rd and 89^th, respectively.
 
Junior Siro Pina Cardona was the second-quickest Panther, finishing with a time of 26:11:09 and 78^th overall. Spencer Smucker finished just six seconds later with a time of 26:17:02 and 81^st overall. Senior TJ Morales rounded out the Panthers in the top 100, finishing 97^th overall with a time of 26:44:04. Every Panther in the race finished with a time below 28 minutes.
 
Up Next
 
The Panthers will travel to Earlysville, VA to compete in the Virginia Panorama Farms Invitational hosted by the University of Virginia on Friday, September 27, starting at 10am.
 
#GoHPU