St. Lawrence University's men's cross country team rested its top runners on Saturday and finished third in the 2015 New York State Collegiate Track Conference cross country championships at Hamilton College.

"A number of teams are treating this meet differently than they used to," said Saint director of cross country and track and field Mike Howard. "Some aren't coming and others are resting their top athletes for championship meets to come and the NCAA Regional. We decided to rest our top runners for both the men's and women's teams and let some of our kids who don't get to run every meet a chance to show their stuff.

"We want to be competitive, but on the other hand we have some big meets looming over the final few weeks of the season."

The Saints finished third in the nine-team 96-competitor field as host Hamilton won with 16 points, Utica was second with 69, the Saints third with 106 and Union fourth.

Senior Adam Bankert led the Saints, finishing 18th and scoring 16th with a time of 26:46.8 on the 8 kilometer course. Freshman Jon Mitchell was the second Saint finisher, 19th overall and scoring 17th in 26:49.2 while sophomores Jack Martin, Zane Belden and Caleb Kessler completed the Saint top five. Martin finished 23rd and scored 21st in 27:04.1, Belden finished 26th and scored 24th in 27:10.5 and Kessler finished 30th and scored 28th in 27:16.4.

Logan Mancuso was 33rd in 27:20.3, Devon Calvin 35th in 27;24.3, Evan Page was 40th in 27:34.8, Zach Lang 49th in 27:59.7, Ellis Toll 50th in 28:06.0, William Bronner 52nd in 28:12.4 and Fletcher Starnes finish 59th in 28:33.9.

The Saints will have their full contingent ready to compete on Oct. 31 when they host the Liberty League Championships with a long string of SLU victories on the line.