Sept. 17, 2005

Kenosha, Wis. - The Wayne State University men's cross country team tied-for-first out of 22 schools at the 2005 Midwest Collegiate hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Parkside on Sept. 17.

Wayne State (44 points) tied Calvin College. Trailing the Warriors were North Central College (67 points), Wisconsin-LaCrosse (69 points) and Wisconsin-Oshkosh (171 points).

Senior Justin Kessler (Ionia, Mich.) finished second just one second behind Calvin's Timothy Finnegan, who completed the 8000m course in 25:06.

Three other Warriors finished in the top seven: Junior Chris Mehay (New Baltimore, Mich./Anchor Bay) was fifth (25:33), senior Matt Fecht (Warren, Mich./Mott) was sixth (25:34) and redshirt freshman Abdullah Saleh (Dearborn, Mich./Fordson) was seventh (25:39).

Sophomore Kevin Christensen (Battle Creek, Mich./Pennfield) was 24th in team scoring and 29th overall in a time of 26:23.

Also competing was sophomore Lance Jones (Saranac, Mich.), who placed 50th (26:58).

The Warriors run a 8k on Sept. 24 in the seventh annual "Cross Country Only" National Championship hosted by Saint Louis University.

The name of the event comes from the fact that the participating schools sponsor a cross country program without the support of a track and field program.