FARMINGTON, ME – The Saint Joseph's College men's cross country team placed fourth with 119 points in the University of Maine at Farmington Invitational today at Mt. Blue High School. Rookie runner Joe DiSalvo (Derry, N.H.) paced the Monks with a 22:39 effort to place seventh overall in the eight-team event.

University of New England, with five of the top six runners, tallied 16 points to win the event by a wide margin. The host beavers finished second with 87 points followed by Maine Maritime Academy (100St. Joe's (119), Unity College (136), University of Maine at Presque Isle (139), Thomas College (145) and University of Maine at Machias (184).

Nor'easters freshman Peter LePage (Limerick, Maine) circled the 6K course in 21:53 to take home individual top honors while teammates Geoff Wahome '14 (Lowell, Mass.) (22:00), Shane Murphy '15 (Glastonbury, Conn.) (22:05) and Daniel Raboin '14 (Lunenburg) (22:13) finished second, third and fourth, respectively. Justin Fereshtian of Presque Isle rounded out the top five with a 22:19 effort.

For the Monks, Faisal Abdillahi '14 (Lewiston, Maine) – a transfer from NCAA DI institution Wagner College – was close behind DiSalvo and finished 10th with a 23:24 performance and Matt Boucher '15 (Augusta, Maine) toured the trail in 25:44 to place 31st. Jeff Merrill '15 (Fitchburg, Mass.) was 45th (28:00), Jeff Letellier '12 (Biddeford, Maine) finished 48th (28:17) and Robert Travers '15 (Lebanon, Maine) placed 64th (47:59) in the team's first race of the 2011 campaign.

The pair of top ten finishes posted by DiSalvo and Abdillahi is the first by a Monks duo in the UMF Invitational since Matt Ferguson '07 and Ryan Prescott '10 placed fifth and seventh, respectively, in the 2006 meet at Mt. Blue High School.

Saint Joseph's will compete in the UNE Invitational on Saturday, September 10th at Rotary Park in Biddeford, Maine at 11:30 AM.

THANKS IN PART TO UMF SPORTS INFORMATION