WEST POINT, N.Y. – The Navy men's cross country team claimed the top four spots and placed seven runners in the top 10 to cruise to a 17-43 victory over Army at the West Point Golf Course in the annual Star Meet as part of the overall Army-Navy Star Series presented by USAA.
Murphy Smith was the individual winner in the 8K race with
Alexander Kirkland,
Sam Keeny, and
Luke Nester finishing in order second through fourth for the Midshipmen.
The score ties for the lowest for the Midshipmen against Army under head coach
Aaron Lanzel (Navy defeated Army 17-46 in 2021). The 17 points was the second-lowest team score of the season for the Midshipmen, just two points back of the 15 points scored during the Navy Invitational.
"Every Navy man today wanted to be a scorer and all of them ran well enough to be one – from our first to our 12th man," Lanzel stated after the race. "They made great decisions throughout the race to improve yet again on some earlier season successes to be excellent today. Challenging conditions in rain and sloppy footing on a course that was new to all of our team; Murphy, Alexander, and Sam were right in their element. Luke had a step up in his career as well as
Sam Moultrie achieving a great performance after years of dedicated pursuit for a day like today. Even a 50-foot slide down the turf with two miles to go for Justin didn't deter him from getting right up into hunt until the finish. I am very pleased that each man wanted to make it count today."
Through the first 450m, the home team held a decisive 17-44 lead, holding eight of the top 10 spots in the race. At the 3K checkmark, Navy took a 24-35 advantage, moving seven runners into the top 10 to overtake the lead by trimming 20 points off of its team total. Through 5.2K, the Midshipmen cut their total points down to 18, taking the top three spots and four of the top 5 positions in the race. Navy closed out the race with seven of the top 10 finishers, including holding the top four spots to post a total team victory.
Smith continued his strong junior season, earning the victory with a time of 23:59.8. The time was just a half a second shy of his top 8K performance of the season at the Paul Short Run (23:59.3) where he finished second out of 393d competitors. Smith was 11th through the first checkpoint on the course, but moved up to third through 3K. At the 5.2K marker, the junior had moved into the lead, which he did not relinquish.
Kirkland clocked a season-best time of 24:15.6 to come in second, while Keeny, the senior team captain, was third with a time of 24:18.9 – his top time of year. Nester closed out the top 4 sweep for the Midshipmen with a time of 24:22.7, trimming roughly 20 seconds off his season-best time (24:43.5).
Sam Moultrie completed Navy's top-5 scorers, finishing seventh overall with a time of 24:39.8, while
Justin Mumford (24:40.8) and
Matt Newell (24:52.1) rounded out the Mids' top seven competitors with an eighth- and 10th-place finish, respectively.
Ben Countiss (24:53.6) took 11th overall, while
Jackson Nguyen (24:58.5),
Joe Reimann (25:00.5),
Carson Sloat (25:10.1), and
Owen Ahten (25:16.7) crossed the finish line in order, taking 13th through 16th.
Saturday's competition marked the conclusion of Navy's regular season as the Mids will turn their attention to action at the 2023 Patriot League Championship on Saturday, October 28.
