NORTON, Ohio – The Trine University men's cross country team was seventh out of 40 teams at the Great Lakes Regional hosted by John Carroll University at Silver Creek Metro Park on Saturday. The Thunder now look to the NCAA selection committee for a potential at-large bid on Sunday, November 12 where 22 opportunities are available. The host Blue Streaks from John Carroll won the region's automatic bid to the NCAA DIII National Championships.

One man who has a great chance of traveling to Newville, Pennsylvania for the NCAA DIII National Championships next weekend is sophomore Ryan Hoopingarner. He led Trine with a ninth-place finish and is in prime position to snag an individual invitation to the event should the team not qualify. Hoopingarner blew his own school record out of the water at the Great Lakes Regional with a time of 24:09.7. That mark will also garner him All-Region honors.

"The men's team ran really tough today," Head Coach Zach Raber mentioned post-race. "They knew they would have to finish in the top four to qualify for nationals and they definitely put themselves in it to have a chance. We ultimately came up a bit short of our goal as a team but we ran well and had a bunch of personal records. Ryan's race was outstanding and that's another school record! It should put him into the national championship next week."

The second Thunder student-athlete to cross the finish line in the 8K race was junior Joseph Packard. Packard was 52nd overall with a time of 24:57.8 (new career-best). Junior Eli Lantz (25:03.1), freshman Max Van Huis (25:04.2) and sophomore Tyler Hartleroad (25:05.7) made up the remainder of the top-five for Trine.

Lantz was 58th, Van Huis 59th, and Hartleroad 62nd in the event, all of those times new personal bests as well. Senior Jacob Myers in 73rd with a time of 25:10.9 and junior Gehrig Longe in 143rd with a time of 26:17.8 rounded out the scorers for the men.