BRONX, N.Y. --- Competing at NYC's venerable Van Cortlandt Park in beautiful sunshine and temperatures in the high 50's (with a bit of wind swirling around the field along Broadway), the Cornell men finished fourth with 75 points and only 10 points away from the win in one of the tightest Heps team races in recent memory. To demonstrate how tight the team race was this year, Cornell scored 74 points in 2014 (finishing second) but was 44 points away from the win.
 
Going in to the race, a number of teams could have taken the title, and the race lived up to its competitive nature.  This season, every Heps squad has been beaten by another Ivy team at least once in a league that appears be very close to complete parity. 
 
Final team scores (national rank in parentheses):
1. Columbia (#17) 65
2. Penn (#29) 69
3. Yale 75 (wins tiebreaker over Cornell, comparing the two teams' #1 vs #1, #2 vs #2, #3 vs #3, #4 vs #4, and #5 vs #5 runners head-to-head, with Yale winning 3-2)
4. Cornell 75
5. Princeton 95
6. Dartmouth 103
7. Harvard 191
8. Brown 230
 
The men's course returned to the "traditional" 5-mile layout that was last used at the 2008 Heps. Columbia led the team race throughout, but Cornell was in contention for the win at all points of the race, coming through 2.1 km in second place, 4.1km and 5km in third, and back in second at 7.1km.
 
Senior Ben Rainero was in the thick of the individual race from start to finish, crossing the bridge going into the back hills (2.1km) in second, leading the race coming off the bridge after the back hills (4.1km) and through the finish area (5km), and pushing down Cemetery Hill in second (7.1km) before placing a valiant fourth overall in 24:30.7, the second-fastest Cornellian ever on the "traditional" 5-mile course.  Senior co-captain Brian Eimstad finished in eighth place overall in 24:52.5, improving upon his ninth place finish in 2014. Sophomore Dominic DeLuca crossed the line in 11th (25:02.2) and senior Zack Israel stepped up in the clutch in his first Heps to place 23rd in 25:22.8.  Junior James Gowans ran in the Big Red's scoring five for the first time this season, taking 29th place in 25:28.6.  Also competing well were senior Ty Kawalec (40th, 25:43.3), junior Mark Tedder (52nd, 26:14.5), junior David Taylor (55th, 26:19.7), sophomore Josh Dyrland (68th, 26:40.3), senior Connor Herr (70th, 26:42.0), senior Sam Baxter (71st, 26:45.5), and senior George Oliver (competing in his first Heps in any season) in 73rd place (26:50.1).
 
Full results here.
 
Cornell returns to Franklin Park in Boston for the NCAA Northeast Regional meet on Friday, Nov. 13 at 1 p.m. (the women compete at noon).  The men's team is currently ranked No. 6 in the region and will likely need to finish at least 4th to be in the mix for an NCAA's team bid.  The team competition will include every Division I team from New York state and north to Maine and will feature No. 2 nationally-ranked Syracuse, No. 9 Iona, No. 24 Providence, plus all the Ivies except for Penn and Princeton, who compete in the Mid-Atlantic region.