BOONE, N.C. - Appalachian State University men's cross country opened its season by hosting the 6,400-meter Covered Bridge Open on Friday night in Boone. The Mountaineers finished in a tie for second with Florida State (60 points) behind first-place Florida (32 points).

"That was a tough tie for the men against Florida State and both them and Florida are consistently ranked, so the race plan was to get in the mix and see what we could do against them," said head coach Michael Curcio. "The guys did just that by going out, competing and a pretty vocal crowd helped to push them along."

The Apps were led by Michael Ellis who finished in second with a time of 20:02.28, just nine hundredths of a second behind Florida State's winner, Jack Goodwin. Ellis was ahead of Goodwin coming into the final stretch before the Seminole made a stronger final effort. That 6.4K time was nearly a minute better than Ellis' previous best at that distance.

"I was very proud of Ellis because he almost pulled off the individual win," said Curcio. "Him and McFoy have been a great one-two punch the last two seasons."

Kyle McFoy was the next runner to cross the finish line for Appalachian State in 11th place (20:41.43/PR) and the team's lone senior was followed closely by Andrew Vandenberg in 13th place (20:45.52). 

Next up, redshirt freshman Ian Milder had a strong showing in his first collegiate race by finishing in 16th with a time of 20:48.44. Cade Zimmerman rounded out the top five for the Black and Gold with an 18th-place finish and was clocked at 20:51.04, which is a PR.

Curcio continued, "It was nice to see Vandenberg crack our top three, Milder is showing he can compete which we expect him to continue to do and Zimmerman showed that he put in a lot of work this summer."

After those five, three more Mountaineers finished in the top 25 including Evan Georges (19th - 20:52.80), Chris Anderson (23rd - 21:02.50/PR) and Ryan Shannon (24th - 21:04.23/PR).

"I was really glad to see Georges and Anderson close up to the top five over the last mile," said Curcio. "Shannon was battling some allergies, but we expect him to be back at full strength by next week. Finally, we'd like to thank all the fans for their patience during the weather deal and I think it was worth the wait."

Next up for App State is the Winthrop Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 19 in Rock Hill, S.C. beginning at 9 a.m.