Ocean City’s Nick Scarangelli, a senior at Embry-Riddle in Daytona Beach, Fla., placed 3rd of more than 220 runners Friday in the Florida State Pre-Regional at Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee.
Scarangelli finished behind only two runners from host Florida State and covered the 8,000-meter course in 24:34, only three seconds off his 8K all-course lifetime best of 24:31 from a race last October in Huntsville, Ala.
Embry-Riddle, ranked 4th in the NCAA Division 2 South Region, placed 4th out of 23 schools with 121 points, behind only FSU [26], Florida Southern [97] and Florida Gulf Coast [108].
Scarangelli finished only six seconds behind winner Hudson Betts, who ran 24:28 in his first race for Florida State after running 13:57 on the track last spring for Alabama.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 