More regionals analysis

This is mostly for those alums/friends of the program that were not at the mudfest at Vanny:

-- Throw away the times. They are meaningless, of no use. The course was a mess, with parts of it under water with puddles. It was impossible to run even remotely fast on it. Interestingly, though, when the men were racing the conditions were not that bad. A bit breezy, but no rain. And, it was insanely warm and humid for this time of year -- mid-60s and sticky.

-- Girma and Conor were not at 100 percent. Girma had been sick all week and had nosebleeds during several of his runs, including Friday afternoon. I was worried his new white singlet would be covered in mud and blood at the same time. He said he had trouble breathing because of his illness, but he "manned up" and got the job done for the team. Conor has had knee pain since before MAACs but it has been barking pretty good the past 2 weeks. He popped some IB before the race and said he didn't feel it, but it was probably a factor in his subpar performance in terms of place. However, there was nothing subpar about his effort. He gutted it out and did a fantastic job for us as 5th man on this day. His status is questionable for ICs.

-- David Raucci was hoping for better, but it was by far his best regional race and he ran tremendously well. His 33 points for our 2nd man was a huge key, as was ...

-- Will Griffin, the fab freshman, who scored 58 points and really held his own against big-time competition over a 10km distance that had us all concerned earlier in the season. No more.

-- Timmy Keegan ran an overall solid performance, as he usually does. He said afterwards it was the hardest race he ever ran. He lost a toenail during/after the race and was in some pain, but he'll hopefully be good to go for ICs.

-- Matt Flint and Joe Mac were disappointed in their races and in not scoring for the team, but they have been strong varsity runners all year and they have one more race to prove it. Matt's race was actually solid and would have been fine for a scoring spot if needed. Again, we are looking for big PR efforts out of them -- and all, at ICs on Saturday.

-- As a team, we finished ahead of two Ivy's (Yale, Brown), which is significant given the caliber of their programs; Army, the Patriot League champ; Boston College; Binghamton and Stony Brook, two strong America East teams; and were just a few points behind the America East champs (UNH).

Now we move on to IC4As, a meet that our program has always attended and where we have some strong tradition. We are hopeful for a strong finish to what has been a solid season. Equally as important, we are hopeful for as many personal-best performances out of the entire squad -- 1 through 25.

And lastly, we are thankful for the efforts of our departing senior xc runners: Alex Emerel, Kris Geist, John Keenan, David Raucci, Girma Segni. They have been part of the best teams in history, and we hope they can be part of a fine send-off at Vanny.

Thanks for reading, and for your support.