POMONA, NJ – Juniors Tauqeer Qazi and DaQuan Bashir challenged the Rutgers-Newark 8-kilometer record, turning in personal bests to pace the Scarlet Raiders to an eight place finish at the CTC Championships hosted by Richard Stockton College. 

2009 CTC Men's Cross Country Championship Results

Nine of the Raiders' 11 runners posted personal bests on the cold and cloudy day. 

Qazi clocked a 27:23.80 to finish 19th in a field of 151 competitors while Bashir finished 26th in a time of 27:33.35. Qazi narrowly missed Paul Bahamondes' school record of 27:16.74 set at the New Jersey Athletic Conference Championship last November on the same course. 

Senior Robert Ezewuiro (29:22.89), sophomore Rolland Ying (29:31.76) and senior Peter Lake(29:33.59) each recorded personal bests to round out the scoring for Rutgers-Newark which totaled 213 points for eighth place among 13 competing institutions. DeSales took the team title with 68 points. 

Freshman Mohamed Gadalla, who is usually among the top three runners for Rutgers-Newark, ran with a sore knee to finish sixth on the squad with a time of 30:24.24. 

Also notching personal bests for the Raiders were Gerard Farao (31:38.34), Justin Booker (32:23.54), McAlbert Jeantus (32:29.27) and Brian Barbera (34:37.54). 

Rutgers-Newark returns to the same course in two weeks to compete in the NJAC Championships which begin with the women's race at 10:30 a.m.