Heartland men's cross country wrapped-up its final tune-up before NJCAA DII Nationals on Thursday, as the Hawks traveled to Charleston, Ill. for the Region-24 Meet at Eastern Illinois University. The Hawks placed first over Kaskaskia College and Danville Area Community College in the NJCAA DII division. Vincennes University, a NJCAA DI team, also participated in the race.
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Matt Padilla paced the Hawks in first place overall with a time of 26:23.70. Overall, Heartland accounted for the top-10 places in the DII race.
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"Matt and Collin (Delagrange) ran awesome today," Heartland head coach
Ty Wolf said. "Our men's team swept the first 10 places in the race. I was hoping we would run together in a pack, but that wasn't the way the race went."
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Below are the remaining individual results for the Hawks from the Region-24 men's race, which featured 20 total runners on the Division II side.
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2.
Brock Loftus (27:34.80)
3.
Ben Huey (27:40.20)
4.
Collin Delagrange (27:50.20)
5.
Eli Mojonnier (27:52.00)
6.
Sam Bushert (27:52.40)
7.
Colton Knowles (27:54.90)
8.
Elijah House (28:43.90)
9.
Kyler McNinch (28:58.50)
10.
Sky Riddle (29:15.90)
12.
Erik Garcia (30:48.80)
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The Hawks will now advance to the NJCAA DII National Meet, which will take place at 2:30 pm on Nov. 11 in Huntsville, Ala.
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"Nationals will be very competitive this year," Wolf said. "Our number one and two runners will have to take care of business up-front. And, our number three, four, five and six runners will have to compete for us to be in trophy contention."
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