MAAC XC men's results/comments

MAAC Championships
Friday, October 29, 2010
Hammonasset Beach State Park, Madison, CT

Men’s team standings:
1-Iona 18, 2-Marist 53, 3-Rider 115, 4-Fairfield 130, 5-Manhattan 144, 6-Loyola 160, 7-Canisius 175, 8-Niagara 183, 9-Siena 270, 10-St. Peter’s 282

Marist individual finishers
7-Matt Flint 24:50.5 (4:58 pace) *All-MAAC
8-Will Griffin 24:52.7 (4:58 pace) *All-MAAC
12-Arquimedes DelaCruz 25:13.3 (5:02 pace) *All-MAAC
16-Ken Walshak 25:17.2 (5:03 pace) *top freshman finisher
20-Nick Webster 25:47.1 (5:09 pace)
21-Tim Keegan 25:51.2 (5:10 pace)
31-Tommy Lipari 26:18.4 (5:15 pace)
32-Joel Moss 26:18.6 (5:15 pace)
36-Pat Duggan 26:23.7 (5:16 pace)
39-Sam McMullen 26:24.5 (5:16 pace)
43-Nick Hughes 26:32.4 (5:18 pace)
45-Ryan Scrudato 26:35.0 (5:19 pace)
46-Mike Nicoletti 26:35.5 (5:19 pace)
50-Billy Posch 26:42.0 (5:20 pace)
58-Brian Townsend 26:49.1 (5:21 pace)
63-Kevin O’Sullivan 26:56.5 (5:23 pace)
64-Nick Salek 26:56.8 (5:23 pace)
68-Michael Keegan 27:06.3 (5:25 pace)
73-Ryan Fitzsimons 27:15.1 (5:27 pace)
75-Chris Reynolds 27:20.0 (5:28 pace)
77-Pat Deedy 27:22.5 (5:28 pace)
82-Zak Smetana 27:27.8 (5:29 pace)
83-Isaiah Miller 27:29.9 (5:29 pace)
85-Will Schanz 27:33.4 (5:30 pace)
93-Kyle Havard 27:53.7 (5:34 pace)
97-Ben Windisch 28:01.9 (5:36 pace)
99-Danny Mendoza 28:04.2 (5:36 pace)
101-Billy Hild 28:05.4 (5:37 pace)
103-Matt Panebianco 28:06.2 (5:37 pace)
108-Doug Ainscow 28:17.4 (5:39 pace)
110-Mike Clausen 28:28.6 (5:41 pace)
111-Luke Shane 28:29.1 (5:41 pace)
118-Brendan Green 29:01.6 (5:48 pace)

General meet comments:

--On second thought ...: This is the sixth consecutive year the men’s team has placed runner-up to Iona. This is a big deal to us as a program. In each of those years, Iona has been nationally ranked. Several of those years, Iona has been a podium team at the NCAA Championships. So it is a point of pride to be “best of the rest” in the conference. It is as close to winning a conference meet as we get. This Iona team may be the best yet; they entered the weekend ranked fourth (4th!) nationally. That’s pretty darn good.

Finishing second for six consecutive years means this bridges several recruiting cycles and several incarnations of Running Red Foxes. Again, it means a lot to us as a program to have that sort of sustained consistency. What makes me proud is the legacy of leadership that has been passed down from each group of captains and upperclassmen. That legacy was evident in the runners-only meeting on Thursday night. So it’s all cool to me.

--All-MAAC attack: The Iona team went after it this year. It was their 20th consecutive MAAC title and on the same course as NCAA Regionals. So they did not hold anything back, grabbing 10 of the 15 all-MAAC spots. Of the other 5 remaining spots, 3 of them were Marist runners: Matt Flint, Will Griffin and Quimes DelaCruz. Freshman Kenny Walshak missed 15th place by a narrow two-tenths of a second, but he was first freshman across the line in a big PR time, so we are proud of Kenny!

--Where was Vess? Junior captain Adam Vess did not race because of some health-related issues that hopefully will be resolved by Regionals. When it was decided on Thursday afternoon that he would not be racing, I immediately went into paranoid mode, thinking it would have a negative impact on our team. Look, I have and had tons of faith in our team. But I was concerned about the unknown – namely, the Hammonasset course that I had never been to. I heard it was pancake flat and lightning fast. Courses like that tend to level the playing field, allowing teams that we would normally dominate on hill-type cross country courses a chance to close the gap on us. This happened to us in our first Disney trip in 2000. I know: That was 10 (!) years ago and a completely different team. But us coaches have loooooooong memories.

Again, deep down I had faith that there would be no issues. Indeed, if my math is correct, we could have voluntarily sat out our three all-MAAC performers along with Vess … and STILL have gotten second place. That is simply a testament to how well we ran as a team.

--Why Joel Moss matters. Sophomore Joel Moss is THE MAN. Joel was our eighth man and ran a monster PR of 26:18.6, an average of 5:15 per mile. Let’s put that in perspective. That same pace, times two, equals Joel’s high school PR (10:30) for the 3,200-meter run. Joel would have been a high varsity runner on every other team in the league except for Iona and Marist, and in many cases he would have been a dominant lead runner. Nicely done, BRO.

--Break out the Barbasol. The MAAC mustache tradition kind of evolved (devolved?) into some pretty hideous facial hair displays of solidarity on Friday. Thankfully, most men came to their senses and were clean shaven for Sunday’s weekly long run. Except for your gray-bearded coach, that is, but I do not count.

Note on the photos: Thanks to Frank Salek (Nick's dad) for the above photos. Actually, I think one of them was taken by Kathy Gould, but I cannot remember. Thanks to both for providing great images ... and great support, as always.