Nov. 21, 2006

BRONX, NY - Sophomore Umar Saeed earned all-East honors with a 14th-place finish for New Jersey Institute of Technology in the season-ending IC4A University Division 5-mile race at the 98th IC4A/22nd ECAC Cross Country Championships held at Van Cortlandt Park Saturday.

Saeed, who was all-East with a 24th-place finish in last year's IC4A race, covered the famed course in 26:24.7.

As a team, the Highlanders placed 17th, up from a 19th-place finish last year. In the process, they trimmed 160 points from their team total. Looking ahead, the entire squad is set to return in 2007.

Other Highlanders in the top 100 for the race, which included 17 full teams from Division I schools and two Division II teams (Adelphi and CW Post), were: Duc Tran (86th at 28:19, nearly 1:30 off his 2005 time in the same race) and Bryan Louvado (100th at 28:34.2).

Others in the top seven for NJIT were: Babatunde Busari (136th at 29:42.9, despite running on a sore ankle); Mike Genuaer (146th; 30:11.2); David Kloc (148th; 30:13.6); and Tchaz Amevor (157th; 31:11.1).

Nineteen complete teams ran in the race, with Fordham winning the team competition and Jaime Julia-Perez of Adelphi was the top individual, at 25:49.8, about 35 seconds ahead of NJIT's Saeed, who was about eight seconds from a top 10 finish.