Mars Hill places ninth at SAC Championships

NEWTON, N.C. - The Mars Hill men's cross country team continued their 2023 campaign at the South Atlantic Conference Championship at Southside Park in Newton, North Carolina with an 8k race. The Mars Hill men's team moved up steadily throughout the race and finished ninth place as a team after entering ranked 11th. 

Continuing his freshman season strong, Kelvin Kiprop led the Lions with a new 8k personal record of 25:07.61 to finish 41st place. The second Lion to cross the line was Maliki Pope who finished in a new personal record of 25:52.57. With an incredible performance, freshman Brandon Wright set a new personal best by multiple minutes to finish in a time of 26:05.44. Rounding out the scoring was freshman Gabriel Hunt and Braxton Cummings who finished close together with times of 26:36.91 and 26:47.19.

Thoughts from Coach Benge:

"The men's team worked very well throughout the race to move up positions throughout the 8k distance and work their way into a 9th place team finish. This was big for our growing program to move up multiple positions from last year's conference and from our pre-season ranking and I fully expect this momentum to keep rolling into future cross country and track and field seasons. Extra kudos to freshman Brandon Wright for setting a new personal record of roughly three minutes to come through for his team and enter the Top 25 Freshman list at Mars Hill! In addition to this, each of the men set personal records over the 8k race distance. This shows that everyone is in peak shape and focused at the perfect time for our championship races!"

To view the full list of results, please click here.

The Mars Hill cross country teams race next at the NCAA DII Southeast Regional in Oakwood, Georgia on Saturday, November 4th.