Graves places 160th at nationals in final race of his career
NORTHFIELD, Minn. - Salisbury University senior Eric Graves concluded a remarkable cross country career as he finished 160th out of 280 runners on Saturday afternoon at the 2007 NCAA Division III men’s cross country championships hosted by St. Olaf College.

Graves, the Capital Athletic Conference Male Runner of the Year, was stuck in a pack early on but started to make his move around the two-mile mark. He finished the 8K course on a cold and windy day with a time of 26:07. The Catonsville, Md., native was the seventh and last runner taken from the Mideast region last Monday to run in this race. He finished third out of the seven runners today.

“I just pushed hard around the two and a half mile mark. It was a tough race,” said Graves. “It took time and patience to break through the pack early on. You couldn’t run full speed right away because it was so packed.”

If Graves ran 10-15 seconds quicker he would have been in the top 80. Wisconsin-Platteville runner Tyler Sigl won the race with a time of 24:24.

“Eric has just had a phenomenal year,” said SU coach Jim Jones. “He has set the standard for the other guys to follow for years to come. Hopefully the guys can duplicate what he was able to do today.”

The Mideast region was well represented as the Haverford team finished second overall with 150 points, 22 behind first-place New York University. The other three teams from Salisbury’s region finished seventh (Allegheny), ninth (Carnegie-Mellon) and 24th (Dickinson) out of 32 teams.

“It is very special to see our region perform so well,” said Graves. “Our region doing well bodes well for Salisbury and our program. We were just one place away from qualifying in regionals [November 10] last week.”