Stags Finish 15th At NCAA Championships

The men's cross country team finished 15th at the NCAA Division III Championships in Cleveland, OH on Saturday.  The Stags, SCIAC and West Region Champions, scored 425 points and were the top finishing team in the region - Willamette University finished 20th and Colorado College finished 25th.  This was CMS' best finish of three team appearances since 2002.

The team was led by the junior duo of Brian Kopczynski (Coto de Caza, pictured left) and Kramer Straube (Menlo Park, pictured right) who finished 53rd and 55th overall respectively.  Running on a relatively soft, slow course that was muddy in places, Kopzynski ran 26:24.9 for the 8K (4.97 mile) race with Straube just one second behind him.  Brian Sutter (FR, Monroe, WA) was the sixth best freshman finisher in the entire meet in 138th at 27:00.1.  Florian Scheulen (SR, Encinitas) and Matt Cummins (JR, Riverside) rounded out the scorers in 150th and 167th places (27:06.4 and 27:14.8).  After removing the individuals, CMS had team scoring places of 37, 39, 106, 115 and 128.  Matt Kurtis (SR, Bellingham, WA) and Kris Brown (JR, Seattle, WA) were the sixth and seventh runners for the Stags in 205th and 238th (27:37.4 and 27:56.3).  280 runners began the race with 276 finishing.

This was the team's eight team appearance at the NCAA Championships.

For complete results, click here: 2009 NCAA Championships results