NOTRE DAME -- The No. 24-ranked Washington State men's cross country team finished seventh in the Men's Blue 5-Mile race at the 61st Annual Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational at Burke Golf Course in Notre Dame, Ind.
 
Senior John Whelan (Etna, Calif.) led the Cougars with an eighth-place finish with a five-mile time of 23 minutes 55.6 seconds. Michael Williams (junior, Richland, Wash.) finished 16th overall in 24:03.4 followed by Sam Levora (junior, Sandpoint, Idaho) in 36th in a time of 24:19.7. The rest of the Cougar scorers were Nathan Wadhwani (sophomore, Maple Ridge, B.C. Canada) in 48th place with a time of 24:28.9 and Paul Ryan (sophomore, Moscow, Idaho), 81st in a time of 24:46.3. Other WSU men who raced Friday included Chandler Teigen (sophomore, Anatone, Wash.) with a 95th place finish (24:53.3), Nathan Tadesse (sophomore, Surrey, B.C. Canada) with a 99th place finish (24:55.2), and Justin Janke (freshman, Spokane, Wash.) in 108th (25:00.1). There were 202 men racing in the Blue Invitational section of the meet.
 
No. 20 Mississippi won the Men's Blue Invitational race with 83 points followed by No. 18 UTEP with 99 points and No.9 Eastern Kentucky with 168 points. The other teams and their placing included Providence (receiving votes in the national rankings) 182 points, Illinois (RV) 183, Southern Utah 187 (RV) and No. 24 Washington State 186. In national rankings, No. 30 Florida State placed 15th (400 points) out of the 25 teams in the field.
 
"We put ourselves in a very good position at the halfway point of the race, in third place, and then we struggled a bit towards the end," WSU Director of Cross Country/Track & Field said. "We accomplished a lot by beating several key teams but we expected to finish a little higher overall. We were only a few points out of fourth and I feel that third was definitely in our grasp. John Whelan had a great race to lead us but having Chandler Teigen fall and never really recover hurt our one through five spread. Overall an awesome experience and this should go a long ways to help us qualify for nationals."
 
The rest of the Cougar men's team and the WSU women's cross country team race Saturday at the Washington Invitational at the Jefferson Park Golf Course in Seattle.