Pengelly 57th of 245 at NCAA Championships

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Michigan Tech's Sean Pengelly finished 57th of 245 runners at today's NCAA National Championships hosted at Sawyer State Park.

The sophomore, who was just the second-ever men's runner from Tech to qualify for the Championships, completed the 10-kilometer course in 31:47. He was just 18 seconds away from the top 40, which earn All-America status.

"We're really proud of Sean," said Tech coach Joe Haggenmiller. "It's bittersweet that he was so close to the top 40 and didn't get it, but he's had an awesome year.

"Credit to my assistant coaches and his teammates for pushing him all year. He represented Michigan Tech very well."

Pengelly started the race in 100th position and moved up to as high as 50th before finishing at 57th. Due to rain in the area all week, the course was extremely wet with a considerable amount of standing water.

Three men's teams and four women's teams from the GLIAC finished in the top 10 nationally in a strong day for the conference. The number of qualifying spots for teams is based on the previous year's finish, so the Midwest Region can expect more team berths in 2015.

"It was good to see the GLIAC do really well," added Haggenmiller. "Sean performed really well for this being his first national championship experience. Our goal now is to build off of this and get a team qualified for this event."

Full results of the NCAA Cross Country National Championship.