Bowling Green State University

Chris Moody finished eighth overall and sixth among Division I runners and the Bowling Green men's cross country team gave a solid effort, finishing eighth at the 23^rd Annual Mel Brodt Invitational at Forrest Creason Golf Course Saturday (Sept. 12) with a team score of 214.

Dayton was the team champion with 34 points and Julius Kiptoo won the race with a time of 23:53.5 as an unattached runner.

The Falcons finished fourth out of four Division I teams, but Coach Cami Wells is pleased with the team's improvement since last fall.

“We had a vast improvement from last year at this meet,” Wells said. “We still know that there are some areas that we need to work on. We fell off near the middle of the race, we need to keep gaps between our runners closer.”

Moody ended the race with a personal best time in the 8K of 25:11.

“I'm very, very pleased with Chris Moody's effort,” Wells said. “That is a personal record for him in a very strong field of frontrunners up there today.”

Jason Salyer was the second Falcon to finish with a time of 25:48, which placed him 24^th overall and 12^th in Division I.

“Jason Salyer, for his first 8K ever as a freshman, did an outstanding job,” Wells said.

Jesse Smuda was the third Falcon to cross the finish line. He placed 60^th/22^nd with a time of 26:49.

Ben Leininger was the next Bowling Green runner to finish as he ended up with a personal best time of 27:21 to place 85^th/25^th.

Abraham Busienei rounded out the Falcons scoring finishing 96^th/26^th with a time of 27:33.

Johnstone Kirui (27:34), Peter Miles (27:47, personal best), Jeff Ehler (27:59), John Bernard (28:36), and Erik Kuehner (31:00) each raced as well for the Orange and Brown.

The team will look to continue its upward progression on Saturday when the Falcon run in the Iona Meet of Champions at Bronx, New York at 10:45 a.m.

“Overall we are pleased with the direction that we are going and we know that we still need to continue to work hard to move up,” Wells said.

Falcon Men Finish Eighth in Mel Brodt Invitational