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Men's Cross Country Shatters Records at NCAA Regional

MSU Athletics

The Morehead State men's cross country team ran five of the top six 10K times in program history, including a school-record by senior Zachariah Elliott, as the Eagles claimed their highest NCAA Southeast Regional finish in school history Friday at Panorama Farms.

Morehead State finished 14th of 35 teams and had its top five runners all cross the finish line in less than 32 minutes. MSU's previous team best was 17th. Besides Elliott's school standard, sophomore Jesse Moreno and junior Gary Monroe ran times that would have been the school record as well.

Elliott finished the race in 30:37.6, topping the 12-year-old MSU 10K mark held by Paul Gilvin (31:05.00) in 2001. Moreno covered the course in 31:00.02, which now sits as the second-best time in school history. Monroe's time of 31:03.9 is now the third fastest on the performance list.

Senior Chase Ratliff tallied a career-best 31:07.6, which is now fifth best. Sophomore Evan Childers rounded out the record-setting effort with a time of 31:58.3, which is now No. 6 on the list.

MSU's next finisher, junior Desmond Bell, nearly slid onto the previous top-10 list too. His time of 33:19.9 was only 15 seconds off that mark. In his first collegiate regional, freshman Jeremy Ruppert turned in a time of 34:24.4.

The NCAA Regional closed out the 2013 season for the cross country team. MSU's outdoor track and field season is set to begin in March.