PARKSIDE, Wisc. - The No. 21 Eagles men's cross country team ran in unfamiliar territory on Saturday, excelling in a cooler climate, surpassing both No.9 MidAmerica Nazarene and No.14 Indiana Wesleyan and racing to a second place finish behind No. 2 ranked Aquinas at the Lucian Rosa Cross Country Invitational hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.

ERAU tallied 95 points, 22 ahead of MNU and 39 points in front of IWU. Sophomore Nick Gehlsen was the first Eagle across the finish line, placing ninth overall at 26:03. He finished just three seconds before first-year athlete Russell Snyder, who crossed the line in twelfth place and four seconds before senior Stuart Patterson who took thirteenth overall. Henry Melius, Evan Clay and Cody Hill took places 31 through 33, crossing each one second apart from each other. Melius led the three and finished in 26:50.

Laurent Williams placed 49th, in at 27:13, and eight seconds later Jarett Woodbury crossed the line in at 55th. Jason Minor rounded out the Eagles' scoring, placing 78th and finishing in 27:49.

The top runner, Noah Too, hailed from MidAmerica Nazarene and finished in 24:42, but his efforts could not be matched by his teammates who placed 23, 24, 29 and 40. Aquinas tallied 37 points to take the meet, they had runners finish in second, third, fifth, tenth and seventeenth.

The Eagles dropped from 19 to 21 in the rankings released on October 10th after competing in the FLRunners.com Invitational the first weekend of October. The team will return to action on Saturday, October 20, where they will race in the Sand Shark Invitational in Bluffton, S.C.