BOSTON – Matyas Csiki-Fejer made good on his impressive regular-season resume and added to it as the Rams captain highlighted the blue-and-gold's men's cross country competitors at the 2021 NCAA Division III East Regionals hosted by Suffolk at Franklin Park Saturday afternoon.
Csiki-Fejer cruised in the top five pack from the get-go. At the 3.1k mile mark he was just 0.09 seconds behind Tyler Morris of Colby, but slipped down to a 19-second trail of Morris at the 5k check point. Over the final three kilometers Morris pulled away and a group of MIT Engineers caught up to Suffolk's senior. Morris covered the 8k field in 25:01 – 37 seconds faster than field's runner-up Andrew Mah of MIT (25:38). A blanket finish featuring three Engineers and Csiki-Fejer (fourth) ensued for the next four spots as all finished in 25:41.
The fourth-place regional finish by Csiki-Fejer is not only the best for the blue-and-gold's long-distance runner, or the Suffolk cross country programs – both men and women – but is the highest place by a Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) student-athlete at regionals. The Manchester, Missouri native is only the third-ever CCC competitor to run into the top 10 at regionals, first to do so since 2017 when Gordon's Damon Kilgore and Wentworth's Alex Robbins took ninth and tenth, respectively. For his top-20 finish, Csiki-Fejer collected All-New England from the DIII New England Association.
Csiki-Fejer's classmate and co-captain Nic Malm turned in a personal-best time of 28:10.3 to cap off his cross country collegiate career with his best regional performance in 66th.
Sophomore Luke Sikora (76th – 28:30.6), freshmen Thomas Novy (82nd -- 28:40.5) and Connor Hayward (100th – 29:06.4) all ran at regionals for the first time in their careers and placed within the top 100 of the 236 competitors in the event to round out the Rams' scorers.
Behind five of its scoring athletes in the top-7, No. 3 MIT romped the team title with 23 points. No. 17 Colby, led by individual champ Morris, finished a distant runner-up with 67 points. No. 26 Tufts took third with 118 points, while No. 32 Bates (126) and WPI (153) rounded out the top-5 teams.
Suffolk, who hosted the regionals for the first-time in program history, slid into ninth out of 33 programs competing in the event with a team score of 324. It was also the best showing by a CCC squad on the Boston course ahead of Endicott (12), the University of New England (17), Gordon (19), Nichols (23) and Wentworth (27).
With the new-and-improved 10-region model, only the top team finisher earned an automatic berth into the 2021 NCAA Championship, which is set for next Saturday, Nov. 20 in Louisville, Kentucky at E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park. The Engineers earned the East's ticket with the rest of the field, that will see 22 at-large programs and 70 additional individuals even a ticket to the national championship, awaiting the NCAA announcement that is set to be made tomorrow Sunday, Nov. 14 on NCAA.com around and no later than 3 p.m.
