CLAREMONT, Calif. - Adam Sage finished second among collegiate runners and Oliver Pick finished fourth to lead the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's cross country team to a close second-place finish at the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational on Saturday morning. 

CMS finished just three points behind Pomona-Pitzer, the defending national champion, foretelling a possible tight battle for the SCIAC and NCAA West Regional titles, which will come next month. 

CMS alumnus Henry Pick, running unattached, was the first finisher in 24:55.6 with Andre Souza of Soka coming in second in 24:59.3, first among collegiate runners. Sage was third in 25:04.2, while Pick was sixth in 25:09.1, with current CMS assistant coach and former Colorado College All-American James Settles in fourth. 

Daniel Fajardo was the third CMS finisher, in 12th overall (ninth among collegiate runners) and Agustin Gomez de la Vega was 17th overall (13th among collegiate runners) as the four Stag seniors all placed highly in their final races in Claremont. 

Hale Behan was the fourth CMS finisher in 13th place (10th among college runners) in 25:46.6 and Matthew Jabro was the fifth scorer for the Stags in 16th place in 25:50.2. 

Jerry Xu was 20th for CMS in 26:11.1, and Jonas Rickert was 22nd in 26:21.1. Pierce Clark (28th), Jacob Pippel (31st), Lou DeLano (35th) and Ethan Wood (40th) were also in the top half of the field. 

CMS will be back in action in two weeks when it competes at the SCIAC Championships on Nov. 2.