UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Taking on a strong regionally-based field on Friday evening at the 2018 Harry Groves Spiked Shoe Invitational, the Navy men's cross country showed well with a fourth-place finish in the team standings. Racing over a 5.2-mile course Penn State's Blue-White Golf Course, the Mids' upperclass leadership championed the team's cause with junior Jake Brophy (Jr., New Hope, Pa.) finishing sixth overall in the field.
 
"Our leaders showed how well they could execute a race today," remarked head coach Aaron Lanzel. "This was an opener for them and it gives them a boost to start the year off right. The supporting cast and the regional competition left a 50/50 split between sweet and bitter tastes. We will internalize both and make use of the results. In the end, this was a great meet for our younger runners like Briggs and Nelsen to see that they belong at this level."  
 
One of eight regionally-ranked teams, Navy went head-to-head versus a trio of top-30 NCAA DI programs in No. 10 Syracuse, No. 23 Princeton and No. 30 Georgetown. Syracuse lived up to its highly ranked billing by taking the event title with 21 team points and six of the top-10 individual finishers. Led by Colin Albert, the overall race winner, the host Penn State Nittany Lions placed second with 57 points. Navy and Saint Joseph's battled for third place with the Hawks edging the Mids, 89-99 in the standings.
 
Georgetown placed fifth overall with 128 before Pittsburgh (153), American (179), Princeton (215) and Grove City (271) rounded out the nine-team field.
 
Individually, Navy was led by Brophy, who clocked in with a time of 25:58, good enough for sixth place. Running with a pack of Syracuse athletes for the majority of the race, Brophy was within seven seconds of a top-four result as the Orange's Noah Affolder and Joe Dragon both recorded times of 25:51.
 
Kevin Murray (Jr., Wilmington, Del.) and Michael Karls (Sr., Festus, Mo.) kept a similar pace over the 5.2 miles with Murray coming in 15^th at 26:27 and Karls in 18^th at 26:34.
 
Sophomore Ben Cracraft (Northville, Mich.) was the fourth Mid to cross the finish line as he placed 29^th with a 26:53 result.
 
The final scoring position was grabbed by Ashwin Briggs (Fr., Pickerington, Ohio), who finished 35^th at 27:11. Briggs' fellow freshman David Nelsen (Chandler, Ariz) came in nine seconds back at 27:20. Nelsen was the 38^th finisher on Friday evening.
 
Quinn Schneider (So., Cornelius, N.C.), Grant Van Valkenburg (Fr., Duvall, Wash.) and Nick Rischar (Fr., Davie, Fla.) gave the Mids nine runners in the top-58. Schneider took 51^st at 27:36 before Van Valkenburg and Rischar went back-to-back in 57^th and 58^th place with respective times of 27:53 and 28:00.
 
Navy will continue early-season action next Saturday morning with the 2018 edition of the Navy Invitational. Racing for the Mids on their home course kicks off at 10:15 a.m. with an abbreviated junior varsity competition before the 11 a.m. varsity race.