Sometimes a team just has to play the hand it's dealt.

Running without one of its top runners, the Penn State men's cross country team earned an eighth place finish at the 44-team Paul Short Invitational at Lehigh on Saturday.

The team pulled Chris Nirschel, a key component to the team's success the past two races, out of the race with a sore leg. Penn State coach Harry Groves said that the injury was nothing serious, but it left the Lions slightly undermanned.

Regardless of the setback, the team stepped up and Dan Mazzocco and Oskar Nordenbring both earned top-20 finishes. Mazzocco crossed the line in 15th place with a time of 24:21.70, followed by Nordenbring in 18th at 24:23.50.

The squad's next highest finisher was Matt Lincoln in 71st place. The Lions finished with 293 points, far short of first-place Georgetown's 123 point total.

"We're disappointed, but at the same time we all ran decent times," Mazzocco said. "We're still feeling good."

The team got off to a solid start, but ran into trouble as it tried to keep runners grouped together and find passing lanes amongst the 300 runners on the course.

"We didn't run as much as a team this week," Lincoln said. "There were so many people; it's hard to stay together."

Several of the Penn State runners found some holes though, and began making their moves in the middle of the 8K race.

"I think I started to make a move at about two and a half miles," Lincoln said. "Then we were able to start passing people."

The Lions were unable to gain enough ground on the leaders and said that running without Nirschel was definitely a significant blow.

"It was tough not having Nirschel because he's been running well, and he would've been near the top if he had been able to go," Mazzocco said.

Regardless of Nirschel's absence, the team is continuing to progress nicely and Groves said he was pleased with the team's performance.

"It was a decent effort on a really fast course," Groves said. "Having to run without Nirschel, the guys did really well."

The race also served as a preview for what the team will see later in the season. The Lions will return to Lehigh's course on Nov. 11 for the Mid-Atlantic NCAA Regionals. Saturday's race gave the team an opportunity to see what the course and the competition will be like in November.

"It was sort of important to go and get a feel for the course," Lincoln said. "There were also a lot of teams that we'll see [at the Mid-Atlantic Regionals] that were there this weekend, so we were able to gauge where we're at."

Groves said that knowing the course isn't usually the highest priority.

"I don't think it requires a lot of pre-race preparation," Groves said.

The Lions have now run three races in three weeks, winning their first two at Lock Haven and the Spiked Shoe Invitational at home.

This week the team will take a break and prepare to host the Penn State National Invitational on Oct. 15, by far the team's toughest test yet.

"We're going to take the week off and take a little time with training," Groves said.

"We don't want to end up having too many races."