Men's cross country runner finishes first at Navy Invitational

University of Richmond junior Matt Llano placed first out of 117 runners during the Navy Salty Dog Invitational Saturday in Annapolis, Md., beating his closest competitor by almost 13 seconds.

Llano finished the 8-kilometer race in 24 minutes, 38.30 seconds. He trailed after the first mile, but he and junior teammate Andrew Benford, who finished third, caught up to the leaders by the third mile.

"I knew how I wanted to run the race," Llano said. "In the past, I had trouble sticking to the race plan. It's easy just to get caught up in the moment. This time I stuck to the plan and it turned out well."

The men's cross country team placed second overall with 77 points, behind Navy's 61 points. The lowest score wins in cross country meets.

The women's cross country team finished first in the 6-kilometer race. Sophomore Nicol Traynor finished second out of 212 runners in 22:39.00. Richmond edged the Navy Midshipmen 42 points to 55.

"We are very excited," said women's cross country coach Lori Taylor. "We were facing a very good, much improved Navy team, and we are glad to come away with a win."

Sophomore Nicol Traynor finished second in the race in 22:39. Junior Amy Van Alstine finished sixth in 23:05, and sophomore Erin Lunny crossed in 23:11.

The temperature was more than 80 degrees when the race began with humidity in the mid-70s.

Stephen Taylor, the men's cross country coach, said it was a welcome change to see his runners finishing in the top five.

"That is something we have lacked in the past," he said. "We have always performed well as a whole, but it is a real good indication for the team to have some athletic guys finishing up front."

The men's and women's cross country teams travel next to Lehigh University in Bethlethem, Penn., to compete in the Paul Short Invitational on Oct. 3.

"We are going to see all of our A-10 competition there," he said. "We're looking forward to it."

Llano said he was looking forward to competing in Lehigh.

"I'm very excited about the opportunity to go out and compete again," he said. "I have not raced there yet. Most of all though, I would love to see our team pull together more so we can win."

The men's team ran without two of its star freshman runners who were in Switzerland competing in the World Mountain Running Championship. Freshmen Tim Smith and Levi Grandt led the United States to a fourth-place finish, its highest finish ever.

Smith placed fifth overall and Grandt placed 12th. They will rejoin the team at Lehigh.

Smith and Grandt competed against 75 runners and 25 countries. Taylor said that mountain running differed from cross country running because mountain running was all uphill.

"In cross country, at the collegiate level, there is a lot of different terrain and uphills," he said. "But if you go up a hill you have a downhill to recover. Tim told me that in places the mountain was at a 25 percent incline. At that point you have to go use your hands if you want to keep going forward. There is no recovery."

The mountain was 8.3 kilometers straight uphill. Taylor said that running a mountain was intense.

"To succeed you have to have a very high threshold for pain," he said. "It's unrelenting."

Results:

Men's Race -- 8K

1 Llano, Matt JR 24:38.30

3 Benford, Andrew JR 24:55.80

14 Quinn, Tim SO 25:35.18

22 Wilson, Jon JR 26:12.50

41 Virgilio, Calvin JR 26:54.50

56 Strojny, Jeff SR 27:24.00

63 Welsh, Sean SR 27:39.90

65 Romesser, Kevin FR 27:40.60

79 Graham, Garrett JR 28:11.00

Women's Race -- 6K

2 Traynor, Nicol SO 22:39.00

6 Van Alstine, Amy JR 23:05.00

7 Lunny, Erin SO 23:11.00

13 Filtz, Diana SO 23:25.00

14 Bertram, Mary SR 23:28.00

19 Rechel, Julie SO 23:42.00

26 Norbo, Carter FR 24:09.00

30 Berry, Emma FR 24:13.00

25 Mankin, Alyssa JR 24:27.00

42 Ennis, Jenn JR 24:33.75

Contact staff writer David Larter at david.larter@richmond.edu