Junior Joe Smith had one of the top finishes in St. Lawrence University cross country program history and was joined on the All America list by classmate Thomas Caulfield as the Saint men's cross country team finished 15th at the NCAA Division III cross country championships in Wisconsin on Saturday.

Jukka Tammisuo won a NCAA title for the Saints in the late 1980s, but the Saints have not had many top ten finishes since until Smith's run on Saturday. He ran at the front of the field from the start of the race and finished 10th overall, scoring eight with a time of 24:35.8 on the 8 kilometer course. Caulfield, who was involved in a pile-up early in the race, battled back to finish 25th, scoring 19th, in 24:48.6.

Freshman Sidi Abdoulaye was the third Saint finisher, 134th overall and scoring 98th in 25:41.8 while junior Ben Fishbein stepped up with a solid race and was 169th, scoring 127th in 25:53.7. Senior Spencer Patterson completed the Saint top five in 203rd, scoring 151st in 26:05.1 while Wesley Kirui was 228th in 26:51.2 and Adam Bankert 268th in 27:10.7.

Wisconsin Eau-Claire won the race with 135 points with Williams second with 155 and Geneseo third with 209. The Saints finished with 403 points.

"That was a huge one-two punch from Joe and Thomas," said Saint coach John Newman. "Only the top two teams and St. Olaf had a stronger first two runners. Joe's finish was one of the few top ten finishes in our program's history and this is one of the more select years in having more than one All American in the same race.

"Joe ran at the front from the start, but Caulfield went through the first split in 197th place after the pileup about 300 yards in and had to work his way back through the pack. A lot of our guys were impacted by the pileup, but they all persisted," Newman added.

"It wasn't the team finish we were looking for. We had the fire power for a top finish, but given the circumstances of the day, our gap from our front two to our second group was just too big to be a threat for a top team place."