Felician Athletics - 10/21/06 MEN'S CROSS-COUNTRY - Felician Wins Third Straight CACC Title

WILMINGTON, Del. – The Felician College men’s cross-country team won the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference team championship on Saturday morning at Carousel Park. It was the third consecutive conference title for Felician and its fifth in the seven-year history of the event.

With 48 points, the Golden Falcons won the championship by a 23-point margin over runner-up Philadelphia University. Wilmington (Del.) finished third with 75 points.

The top 15 finishers were honored with all-conference status, and Felician claimed four of those positions. Junior Mike Burghoffer (Stockholm, NJ/Wallkill Valley) led the Felician pack, completing the 8,000-meter (five-mile) course in 28 minutes, 37.86 seconds. Burghoffer finished fifth overall out of 61 entrants, one spot ahead of classmate Paul Chegwidden (Hamburg, NJ/Wallkill Valley), who ran a 28:40.66. Junior Alex Wright (Stockholm, NJ/Wallkill Valley), like Burghoffer and Chegwidden a second-time all-CACC performer, finished ninth in 28:56.70, and freshman Brad Schepise (Milltown, NJ/Spotswood) was 11th in 29:17.03.

The Golden Falcons’ fifth scorer was junior Jonathan Castro (Toms River, NJ/Toms River), who locked up the title when he crossed the finish line 17th in 30:04.61. Also running for Felician, and allowed to raise the point total of runners finishing behind them, were junior Brian McDonnell (Kearny, NJ/Kearny) (33rd, 32:08.60) and senior Andrew Conklin (Brick, NJ/Old Brick) (42nd, 33:58.05).

Felician head coach John Brennan was named CACC Coach of the Year for the third consecutive season. Philadelphia’s Joshua Vander Veen won the individual championship with a time of 27:53.69.