Kevin McCarthy won the men's individual title, while teammates Brian David, Dalton Boyer, and Kenny Farris joined him on the All-Region team to guide Wabash to a second-place finish at Saturday's NCAA Division III Great Lakes Regional. The team result will send the Little Giants to the National Championship meet next weekend.

The Little Giants will return to the nationals for the second consecutive year. Last year the Little Giants finished 13th in the nation at the final meet after grabbing second place at the Regionals the prior week.

McCarthy demolished the 8,000-meter course with a time of 24:31.01 — averaging 4:56 a mile — to take the top spot and individual first place honors. McCarthy defeated North Coast Athletic Conference individual champion Dee Salukombo, who finished second with a time of 24:44.61. McCarthy trimmed nearly 45 seconds off his season-best time.

"The plan was just to go out with the Calvin guys because we knew they would go straight to the front," McCarthy said in a video interview after the meet. "I was just hanging with them, duking it out for the first couple of miles. And then Dee Salukombo from Denison was way up front, so at about the middle of the race I started moving to go catch Dee. He started coming back... I passed around him and never looked back."

David, Boyer, and Farris also turned in their season-best efforts on Saturday. David raced to an 11th-place finish with a time of 25:11.58, over 20 seconds quicker than any other time this season. Boyer finished 17th with a time of 25:33.57 — 31 seconds faster than his previous best time this season. Farris captured 29th place to earn All-Region honors by finishing in 25:57.22, his best time of the year by over 27 seconds.

Jared Burris was not originally scheduled to compete for the Little Giants, but stepped in due to illness and produced his best time of the year. The freshman turned in a time of 26:12.40 — 43 seconds quicker than his previous top mark — to finish in 42nd place. He just missed placing all five runners on the top-35 All-Region team by less than seven seconds.

Billy McManus finished 61st for Wabash with a time of 26:35.06. Nick Boyce completed the team effort for the Red Pack with a 91st-place finish out of a field of 243 runners with a time of 27:03.87.

Men's Results

Calvin captured its 16th consecutive team regional title with a total of 38 points. Wabash scored 100 points, well ahead of third-place Manchester with 197 points. Ohio Wesleyan took fourth place (201) with Albion finishing fifth (224) out of 35 teams.

The NCAA Division III National Championship Meet will take place Saturday, November 19 at noon in Winneconne, Wisconsin. The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh will serve as the host school.