PASADENA, Calif. — The 2023 Caltech men's cross country season was a historic one, as the team posted its best SCIAC Championship finish in 41 years (third), ran its fastest average 8K in school history (25:48) and saw two Beavers qualify and compete at the NCAA National Championships.

But that's not all: those two runners — junior Rohun Agrawal (Cupertino, Calif. / Monta Vista) and senior Joey Litvin (Ardmore, Pa. / Lower Merion) — earned First Team All-SCIAC honors with Agrawal placing runner-up and Litvin earning 10th among 131 opponents at the conference meet.

The duo also received All-Region distinction after leading Caltech to a sixth-place result at the NCAA West Regional.

Agrawal, who placed sixth individually at the regional meet with the program's fastest 8K time in school history, was named Co-Athlete of the Year at the Caltech Athletics Student-Athlete Celebration last month.

It's a long list of accomplishments for head coach Kelli Blake and her staff, who collected SCIAC Men's Cross Country Coaching Staff of the Year honors as voted on by conference head coaches.

The Beavers competed in their first meet on Sep. 2 as several Beavers tested their fitness at the Redlands Invitational. Litvin led the Beavers across the 6,000-meter course, crossing the line at 19:41.80 to place sixth out of 58 athletes.

The squad next turned its focus to the large-scale UC Riverside Invitational, where the group placed sixth in the open section out of 19 teams and third among Div. III programs.

It was Agrawal who led the Beavers as the eighth finisher out of 232 athletes, tackling the 8,000-meter course in 25:12.9 for a 5:04.3 average mile time.

Rookie Ryan Fortin (Londonderry, N.H. / Londonderry) came in second at 25:54.5 before Litvin crossed the line moments later at 24:59.4. Junior Miles Jones (San Diego, Calif. / Rancho Bernardo) came in fourth at 26:32.0 and junior Thomas MacLean (Redding, Calif. / Shasta) rounded out the Beavers' top five (26:40.1).

One week later, Caltech traveled to Santa Clarita as they took on The Master's Invitational. It was a historic day for Agrawal, who finished the 8,000 meters with a program-record time of 24:47.60 to finish 18th among the 236 runner-field, which included athletes from Divisions I and II.

In October, the program sent some of its top runners to the NCAA Pre-Nationals Invitational in Newville, Pennsylvania for a final tune-up before postseason action. There, the team ran the same course to be used at the NCAA National Championships the following month. Agrawal and Litvin – who later would indeed qualify for the national meet – came across first and second for the team. Agrawal ran a brilliant race, crossing the 1-mile mark in 71st before moving up to 36th at the 5K and ultimately crossing the 8K finish line in 22nd overall out of 378 competitors. The standout recorded a time of 25:25.8.

Litvin followed with a solid time of 26:00.5 to earn 71st before MacLean came in third for the squad and 173rd overall (27:10.2) and Fortin placed 199th (27:25.7). Jones came through fifth for the Beavers and 205th overall (27:28.9). As a group, the team scored 19th place among the 38 teams present; they finished just four places behind the nationally-ranked Hope College.

Blake's well-devised training plan began to really show as the team put in a historic third-place finish at the Oct. 28 SCIAC Championships. It was the program's best SCIAC team finish since 1982.

The men smashed their fifth place finish set one year ago as they beat out the University of La Verne — a strong squad who ranked as high as No. 26 in the nation this season — on a third-place tiebreaker. The Beavers were predicted to finish fifth in the conference preseason poll back in August. For the team's phenomenal showing, Blake and her staff received SCIAC Coaching Staff of the Year distinction.

Agrawal ran one of his strongest races of the season, finishing runner-up among all 131 finishers. The star averaged just over 5:00 minutes per mile across the 8K course, crossing the line at 24:53.4. It was the highest individual finish for the Beavers since Dan Kleiman won the race in 1996.

Litvin came across next with a quick time of 25:20.0 for tenth; both he and Agrawal earned First Team All-SCIAC honors for their top-ten finishes. It was the second straight All-Conference selection for Litvin, who collected a Second Team nod in 2022.

Senior Kyle McCandless (Lexington, Mass. / Lexington) exploded for a huge 31st place finish, running a personal-best 26:19.9; Jones came in next (41st, 26:48.9) before Fortin (42nd, 26:51.6) rounded out the Beavers' top-five.

"We just did a great job of competing," said Blake. "We always say, 'things don't have to be perfect to be good.' Two of our normal top-7 had off days but we still had the depth to have our best team finish in 40-plus years," said Blake. "I think that says a lot about the culture the men's team is cultivating."

"We went into this meet having been pretty handily beaten by five other teams in the conference all year," said Blake. "However, the way we train and compete set us up for a strong finish, and I think the team has really bought into the philosophy of how we approach the season physically and emotionally."

The team's average time of 26:02 stood as the fastest in program history for just two weeks as the two destroyed it at the NCAA West Regional Meet on Nov. 11 with an average of 25:48. There, the Beavers placed sixth place in the region out of 23 teams – their highest finish in recent history. Individually, Agrawal came across sixth among the 172 athletes, automatically qualifying him for the NCAA National Championships later in November. The Cupertino native ran a 24:49.0, just 1.6 seconds off his own program 8K record.

Agrawal crossed the 1600-meter mark (~1 mile) of the race in 31st place, clocking in at 4:59.6 before picking off runners ahead of him as the race progressed. The Beaver destroyed the middle part of the race as he moved up from 27th place at the 2.9K mark all the way to 14th just 1300 meters later before ultimately crossing in sixth.

Litvin finished second for the team in 16th, burning through the course in 25:04.6. The senior, who earned a bid to the National Championships in 2022, later received an at-large bid to make it back-to-back nationals appearances. He and Agrawal earned All-Region for their superb performances.

McCandless wrapped up his career with a 36th place finish at 25:42.7. It was an incredible final race for the Beaver, a member of the Caltech men's tennis team who only joined the cross country program his junior year and balanced training for both sports. The Beaver was followed by MacLean (70th, 26:34.6) and Fortin (83rd, 26:47.0).

Blake was pleased with how the team overcame challenges to come up with such a strong performance on the biggest stage yet.

"The men's line up was in flux because of a couple of illness and injury issues," said Blake. "But the seven that ran really did a nice job of executing and being tough."

At the national meet, Agrawal claimed 88th overall and 19th among individuals who did not qualify via a team, crossing the line at 25:37.7. Litvin finished in 137th (25:56.3), firmly in the top half. Agrawal's finish ranks among the best in Caltech history just one year after Caltech's Margaret Trautner placed 88th at the national meet in 2022.

The race served as an impressive end to a phenomenal season for the program, who graduates seven seniors though will return a number of key returners in addition to a strong incoming class. Stay tuned for an official schedule release later this summer.

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