WESTFIELD, Mass. – In his first race of the season, Bentley University men's cross country senior co-captain Rob Dextradeur (Branford, Conn./Branford HS) finished 14th overall and fourth amongst Division II athletes in the 100th running of the New England Intercollegiate Men's Cross Country Championships.

Dextradeur posted a time of 24:45.87 on the 8,000-meter course, 48 seconds faster than he ran on the same course during the 2011 Northeast-10 Championships. It was also an improvement of 62 places from what he did at last year's New Englands.

His effort helped Bentley finish 12th in the team standings with a score of 402. American International was the only Division II team with a higher finish (7th, 238), and the Falcons were two places and 27 points better than Stonehill, the top-ranked Division II team in the East.

Twelfth place was a major improvement over last season when the Falcons were 24th, and marked the program's first top 20 finish since 2005 (19th). The last time Bentley was as high as 12th was in 1998.

Bentley's next two runners across the line were seniors John Drago (Avon, Conn./Avon HS) and Curt Trueb (Eastchester, N.Y./Eastchester HS), in 52nd and 86th, respectively. Drago posted a 25:24.94 and Trueb followed in 25:50.55.

Completing the top five for the Falcons were senior Teddy Farley (Acton/Acton-Boxborough Reg. HS) in 105th (26:00.93) and junior Conor Higgins (Randolph, N.J./Randolph HS) (145th, 26:19.42).

American International freshman Mike Biwott won the individual title by about 25 seconds with a time of 23:56.16, and the team champion was Dartmouth College.

Bentley is off until Oct. 20 when it'll run in the Northeast-10 Championships in Jamesville, N.Y.