Men's Cross Country | October 26, 2018

PHILADELPHIA – After a top-five finish at the league championship a year ago, the La Salle University men's cross country team will compete at the Atlantic 10 Conference Championships in Mechanicsville, Va., on Saturday.
 
The five mile race will begin at 10:50 a.m. at Pole Green Park and will be streamed live on ESPN+, weather permitting.
 
The Explorers finished fifth at last year's A-10 Championship, and the squad returns both of its top finishers from last season's race in sophomore Ryan James and redshirt junior Anthony Hawthorne. La Salle also brings freshman standout Ibrahim Kedir to the table this time around, as well as sophomore "X Factor" Luke Jaciw-Zurakowsky, who suffered an injury during last year's race that kept him from finishing.
 
James, who was honored as the 2017 A-10 Most Outstanding Rookie Performer, finished 17th at the league championship last season. Hawthorne finished just four spots behind James in 21st among 117 runners, and is coming off a spring season where he was a national semifinalist at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
 
Kedir and James have led the way for the Explorers thus far this season. Kedir was named A-10 Rookie of the Week on September 18 after placing 11th out of 137 runners at the Iona Meet of Champions. He also led the Explorers at the Princeton Invitational the last time out, finishing 27th among 219 runners. Meanwhile, James was 35th at Princeton and placed 42nd among 360 runners at the Paul Short Gold Run.
 
A hungry, young core of Kedir, James and Jaciw-Zurakowsky will team up with veteran runners Hawthorne, Nathan Gillis and Nick Smart, looking to make some noise with a strong team finish.