Fairfield Invy: Men's results/comments

Men’s team standings:

1-Fairfield 32
2-Sacred Heart 45
3-Fordham 77
4-Manhattan 90
5-Marist 125
6-John Carroll 161
7-New Haven 197
8-Bridgeport 258

Marist individual results and quick coach Pete commentary
8,000 meters

17-Kevin O’Sullivan 27:53.26. Solid effort. Could have been better but strong debut at 8km.
23-Ryan Brown 28:19.12. Very solid effort and key scoring spot for us. Look to PR big-time at Paul Short.
27-Isaiah Miller 28:35.11. Excellent 8km debut and best effort to date. You will only continue to improve. A lot.
28-Brian Townsend 28:46.13. Not as bad as it seems, but definitely not great. As I told you afterwards: It didn’t suck. I think that sums it up. Next few weeks should be much better.
30-Ryan Scrudato 28:52.63. A bit too amped up for this. You can hold pace a lot longer.
31-Patrick Deedy 28:56.91. Strong effort for first 8km xc race.
35-Doug Ainscow 29:09.93. Ditto.
37-Danny Mendoza 29:15.61. Ditto.
39-Will Schanz 29:18.02. Ditto (although it’s not your first 8km race)
41-Billy Hild 29:20.39. Ditto. All of you guys ran decent all things considered.
42-Andrew James 29:23.36. Nerves, crappy terrain and crappy weather contributed to this time, which should improve markedly next time.
48-Nick Salek 29:35.85. Can be a lot better, especially considering your Bowdoin opener.
56-Luke Shane 30:19.06. A sub-30:00 equivalent effort, but too many factors worked against your achieving your goal.
63-Michael Keegan 30:39.54. Didn’t talk to you about it, but I’m guessing breathing was a big issue.
68-Mike Clausen 31:17.01. Nothing good to say about this, other than there is another race soon.
88-Brendan Green 33:53.73. Ditto.
DNF-Ryan Fitzsimons (heat)
DNF-Matt Panebianco (heat!)
DNF-Chris Reynolds (injury)
DNS-Kyle Havard (injury)
DNS-Ben Windisch (missed the bus)


Overall commentary: We wanted to make a statement that Marist Distance is a strong and deep program. While we did not fully succeed in that goal today, if you take a somewhat objective look at it, it wasn’t a terrible day for us. I find myself constantly thinking about today and the same weird phrases pop into my head: “It didn’t suck.” “It doesn’t suck.” I really think that sums it up in so many cases. Could have been better, could have been A LOT better, but not terrible.


Consider: Four (and maybe five!) potential scorers today did not start or did not finish. Reynolds and Panebianco certainly projected as varsity today, but we’ll never know. Same with Windisch, who will never make the mistake again. Fitz WAS varsity before his untimely demise. And Kyle Havard, despite recurring lower-leg muscle issues, is strong and solid when healthy.

And remember: That’s BEFORE factoring in our projected top 12 to 14 runners on the team, who did not race this week.

So yeah. It didn’t suck. But it’s still not great.

Long day. Time for bed.