Thoughts on the MAAC meet

Overall, it was a great day for our program at Friday's MAAC Meet at Van Cortlandt Park. For the first time in many years, the men and the women finished 2nd at the meet.

For the men, it was seventh time in program history (and fifth in a row) that we have finished second to nationally-ranked Iona College. This is a badge of honor for our team, and you guys (past, present, future) should be proud of this accomplishment. Here is a breakdown of our 2nd-place finishes to Iona through the years:

1998: 70 points
2003: 60 points
2005: 73 points
2006: 52 points
2007: 61 points
2008: 55 points
2009: 57 points

For the women, our relatively young squad really stepped up -- running with toughness, maturity and depth -- to get the job done. Our top three runners (Addie DiFrancesco, Brittany Burns and Kathryn Sheehan) placed 2nd, 8th and 9th. Fantastic. What made the meet complete were our Fab Freshmen -- Jackie Gamboli and Erin O'Reilly. When their classmate, Katie Messina, went down with an untimely ankle injury, they stepped up and closed strongly, enabling us to outrun Canisius for 2nd place (56 points to 66 points). It was awesome.

By the way, Katie really tried her best to tough it out with the turned ankle, but she had to stop before the back hills as the discomfort was too much. Her tenacity and courage were very much admired and appreciated. The great thing about a team is that teammates will pick you up, and that's what happened on this day.

On the men's side, we had 5 All-MAAC performers (Adam Vess, Will Griffin, Matt Flint, Quimes DelaCruz and Conor Shelley) for the first time in school history. Overall, it was not a great meet for us top to bottom, but we got the job done.

A note on the finishing times, for alumni and those interested in history: They are essentially meaningless.

In the women's meet, the 6km course was about 109 meters long. However, at least the course was the same as previous 6km course at VCP. It was long simply due to the massive construction project at the park.

The men's course bears no resemblance to the traditional 5-mile VCP layout that we have run for generations. Too bad. It was long, windy, tougher and much slower. The course measured at least one-tenth longer than 5 miles, from what I could gather.

In addition, the hills were compressed, with the Back Hills and Cemetery separated by just about 1000 meters. So yes, the times were really slow. Too bad, it would have been nice to see where this team stacks up in the history of the program at VCP. Oh well, that's life.

Strategically, many of our guys went out too hard for the first flat 2 miles. And they paid, big time, in the back hills. This is uncharacteristic of our team. Live and learn. We will be MUCH smarter at IC4As in a few weeks.

Again, great day for the program. I am proud to represent both the women's and men's teams, and we did an excellent job on this day.

I will follow up with complete results and additional commentary when possible.