More thoughts on Albany

By my conservative calculations, we spent close to 15 hours of driving – or staying dry – inside our athletic van over the past three days. Between a long round-trip to Penn State and a shorter round-trip to Albany today, it was a lot of miles and a lot of time on the move.

So as I attempt to analyze today’s solid meet at UAlbany, I use this as a preface in case I leave anything out. Feel free to call me out accordingly. If I am somewhat brain-dead, it is from way too much Blink 182 (is it me, or do all their songs sound the same?) hammering into my weary head on the endless drive through … wherever.

Some random highlights and thoughts …

--On the men’s side, we start with sophomore Nick Salek’s individual victory in the Purple Race. His time was second fastest of the day for us and it was a major breakthrough effort.
--As was sophomore Billy Hild’s race, a major bounce-back effort after his disappointing DNF at Paul Short.
--Sophomore Ben Windisch and sophomore Andrew James should be lauded for strong efforts. And let’s not overlook Will Schanz, who is still not over pneumonia but raced gamely.
--In the men’s varsity race, similar kudos to freshman Mark Valentino, who was less than 100 percent due to illness. Freshman Ian Dorset also had a strong effort.
--Big breakthrough performance by senior Ryan Fitzsimons in the varsity race.
--Senior captain Brian Townsend had a solid frontrunning performance.
--In the “nice planning, coach” department … Salek (2nd fastest time of the day), Hild (5th fastest), Windisch (7th fastest) and Nick Hughes (9th fastest) all were in the non-championship Purple Race. This highlights our depth but also the volatility and unpredictability of our sport.
--On the women’s side, things went much more according to form as the top 9 times for the day were all in the varsity (championship) race.
--Our women’s team continued the stellar fall with a fifth-place finish in a fantastic field that included America East powers New Hampshire and UAlbany, along with Middlebury and McGill.
--In a tribute to how outstanding a season she is having, freshman Michelle Gaye’s ninth-place finish continued her season-long streak of top-10 performances. Ninth is the furthest back she has been all season, and on this day, that was a tribute to how strong the field was.
--Our top-3 of Michelle, senior Addie DiFrancesco and freshman Erin Thompson continued their strong showings with top-25 finishes and a 35-second gap.
--Our gap to our fourth finisher, junior Katie Messina, was another 12 seconds. Coach Chuck has stressed the need for us to continue to close gaps, and that is always so vital in this sport.

In general, this was a solid day for us on a new UAlbany course. The weather could have been much worse. It was cool and breezy – at times, VERY breezy – but at least it was dry.

Now, we move on to prepare for the true championship portion of our season: MAAC, NCAA Regionals, ECAC/IC4As.