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The 30th annual Centennial Conference men's cross country championship is set for Saturday, Oct. 28 at McDaniel College in Westminster, Md. McDaniel will host the championship for the fifth time and first time since 2013. The men's 8,000-meter race will open the day at 11 a.m. followed by the women's 6,000-meter run at noon.
The 2022 championship meet featured the second-closest team finish in Centennial history, with Johns Hopkins edging Haverford by three points to claim its third title. The Blue Jays and Fords have won every CC title since 2010, with Haveford claiming nine of those and JHU with three. Overall, Haverford owns 24 team titles, the most among any team across all 24 Centennial sports. Hopkins (3) and Dickinson (2) are the only two other teams to have won CC men's cross country crowns.
Leading Haverford to each of those titles has been head coach Tom Donnelly, who will be coaching at a CC championship for the final time on Saturday. Earlier this fall, Donnelly announced that the 2023 cross country season would be his last at the helm of the Fords program. One of the most accomplished coaches in any Centennial sport and in the world of collegiate cross country and track & field, Donnelly has won a combined 77 conference championships as part of both the Middle Atlantic and Centennial Conferences, including 65 titles since 1993. Haverford athletes have achieved remarkable success under Donnelly's guidance, as he has coached nearly 200 cross country and track & field All-Americans, 30 NCAA champions and guided the Fords to a cross country team national title in 2010.
Hopkins (16) and Haverford (30) are ranked nationally in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) rankings entering this weekend's championship event. Six teams are ranked regionally across two different regions. In the Metro region, Haverford is ranked first while Swarthmore (6) and Ursinus (8) are also among the top 10. A trio of CC squads are also ranked in the Mid-Atlantic region, with JHU (2), Dickinson (4) and Franklin & Marshall (9) representing the CC.
Seven runners with All-Centennial honors to their names will look for repeat all-star performances on Saturday. JHU's Emmanuel Leblond and Gavin McElhennon lead the way as 2022 first-team All-Centennial honorees and eventual All-Americans. McElhennon finished third at the 2022 championship while Leblond took fifth. The JHU duo combined for three of the seven CC Athlete of the Week awards this fall.
Haverford's Peter LaRochelle is also back as a first-teamer after finishing in sixth place in 2022. LaRochelle has put together an impressive fall pacing the Fords and has earned two Centennial weekly awards for his efforts.
Other returning All-CC performers include the JHU trio of Sean Enright, Tommy Li and Charlie Teeter. Enright was a second-teamer in 2022, Li collected first team and Rookie of the Year accolades in 2021 and Teeter was a second team performer in 2021.
Another deep pool of talented runners from around the conference will compete on Saturday. Other runners to keep an eye include Dickinson's Brock Overlander and Alexander Kane, Franklin & Marshall's Alfonso Knoll, Gettysburg's Josh Judson, Haverford's Nathaniel Leighninger and Matt Denton, McDaniel's Jack Sears, Muhlenberg's Raam Ravishankar, Swarthmore's Cohen Manges and Ursinus' Tucker McGrath.
