CENTER VALLEY, Pa. – The Wilkes University men's cross country team finished 11^th out of 28 teams at the DeSales Invitational on Saturday morning. The Colonels scored 374 points in the 8k event.

Sophomore Franco Balbuena (Wilkes-Barre, PA/Coughlin) finished 36^th and ran the fifth best time in school history with a time of 27:32.3. Freshman Blade Tirado (Closter, NJ/North Valley ) set the sixth best time in school history at 27:39.9 to finish 45^th.

Freshman Noah Molina (Scranton, PA/West Scranton) (102^nd, 29:06.1), freshman Kevin Long (Goshen, NY/Goshen) (124^th, 29:35.6), and sophomore Ryan Weber (West Haven, CT/West Haven) with a season-best time (145^th, 30:13.8) also figured into the team score for Wilkes.

Six more Colonels rounded out the participants. Running season-best times for Wilkes were sophomore Alan Sebastianelli (Archbald, PA/Valley View) (148^th, 30:21.0) and senior Kendrick Schell (Northampton, PA/Northampton) (164^th, 30:55.4). Sophomore Killian Sloan (Bridgeton, NJ/Cumberland Regional) ran a career-best time (180^th, 31:40.4) and sophomore Kevin Singhel (Athens, PA/Athens Area) finished at (189^th, 31:56.2). Career-bests were turned in by sophomore Jason Montemuro (Jim Thorpe, PA/Jim Thorpe) (197^th, 32:19.2) and freshman Colin Ahrensfield (Ashland, PA/North Schuylkill) (235^th, 35:18.7).

The Colonels next run in the Gettysburg Invitational on Saturday, October 14 at 10:30 a.m.