Oct. 14, 2000

Notre Dame, Ind. – The Notre Dame men’s cross country team, ranked 17th in the MONDO cross country poll, finished 10th in a field of 29 teams at the 28th annual Memorial Cross Country Classic in Ames, Ia., site of the 2000 NCAA cross country championships in late November.

The Pre-National Meet featured some of the nation’s top teams. Colorado was victorious on the men’s side as the Buffaloes finished with a score of 64, placing two of their runners in the top 10. Northern Arizona was second with a score of 215, followed by Stanford (255), BYU (310), Georgetown (313), Arizona (314), Duke (339), Oregon (382), Weber State (388) and Notre Dame (404).

Junior Luke Watson (Stillwater, Mn.), who was victorious at last week’s Notre Dame Invitational, was the first Irish harrier to cross the finish line in the 10,000-meter race with a time of 30:52.3. Sophomore Jorge Torre won the race in 30:31.1.

Junior Marc Striowski (Toronto, Ontario) also recorded a top 10 finish as he placed 10th with a time of 31:16.0. Notre Dame’s next finisher in 82nd overall was junior Patrick Conway (Springfield, Va.) who had a time of 32:14.7. Freshman Todd Mobley (West Bloomfield, Mich.) recorded a time of 32:23.7 and was 100th overall. The fifth Irish runner to score was Sean Zanderson (Poway, Calif.) who finished 222nd overall with a time of 33:20.2.

Other Irish runners in the race who did not score were freshmen David Alber (Dayton, Ohio) and David Mertens (Ballwin, Mo.). Alber had a time of 33:49.9 and was 265th overall, while Mertens was 299th with a time of 34:20.5.

The Irish men’s and women’s cross country teams will be in action in two weeks when they travel to Boston, Mass., for the 2000 BIG EAST Cross Country Championships. The men will be looking to defend the title they won in 1999.