ATLANTA, Georgia - May 12, 2006 - Jason Waters finished fifth in the 5000 meter run to lead the Owls in the first day of the 2006 Georgia Tech Invitational at the George C. Griffin Track on Friday evening.

Under perfect conditions and a crisp evening sky, Waters came up with the best finish of the day for Kennesaw State in the meets final event. The Owls senior broke into the first group of runners early and stayed in contention, finishing with a time of 15:02.20. Fifteen seconds behind winner, Jesse Cherry of High Point.

"Jason ran well tonight," said head coach Don McGarey. "He set a track record a few weeks ago and I was hoping he could continue on that road. However, this has been an extremely long season for our athletes and it may have begun to wear on them a little bit."

Daniel Gormley, Joseph Mutai and Maxwell Ndungu all competed in the race with Gormley (15:27.05) finishing 11th, followed by Mutai (16:15.04) in 16th place and Ndungu (16:25.75) finishing in 17th position. Matthews Auers finished 44th in the 1500 meter run with a time of 4:13.46.

Day two of the 2006 Georgia Tech Invitational will take place all day Saturday at Griffin Track.