Penn State National meet today

Just got back from a very long and very soggy van trip to and from Penn State. The rain was heavy and relentless for most of the trip – including during our team’s race time.

The course was very soggy and very, very muddy. It’s cross country. Deal with it. Please keep that, and the 5.2-mile distance, in mind when judging the times from today. Basically, the times mean virtually nothing.

Kenny Walshak probably had the best individual performance of the day – and he face-planted in the sloppy mud. I wish I could share a picture of his formerly white singlet with you, but I do not have one.

Senior captains Will Griffin and Matt Flint did their usual yeoman’s job leading our team. Flint was a little flat on this day and can do better, but he certainly did not hurt our team. Will ran a solid front-running race. Their consistency and leadership is something I have never taken for granted, and never will.

As mentioned, Kenny had a great race and closed the gap on our front runners, which is so key for us. Freshman Justin Tampellini went out a bit too aggressively and paid for it over the final 2 miles. Still, he hung tough and continues to be a consistent scoring runner for us.

Senior captain Tommy Lipari had his best race of the season and provided our final scoring spot. Still, he can be better and needs to be better. He knows it, and the final championship meets will be important for him and for us.

Junior Quimes DelaCruz had a rough day. He has been suffering from illness. In retrospect – hindsight being 20-20 – Q should not have raced. I’ll take the blame on that one. But he gave it his best. His breathing was labored, so he basically turned it into a fartlek workout. He would push hard for about 30 seconds, and then his breathing suffered. Very frustrating.

We could easily play the “well, if Quimes were up with (fill in the blank) we would have moved up (fill in the blank) spots.” But that’s not how it works in real life. It is what it is, and you are what the final team standings say you are (to paraphrase legendary football coach Bill Parcells).

Junior Joel Moss had a decent race, but we know he can do much better. Junior Mike Nicoletti suffered from cramps in the second part of the race, and the disappointing results ensued.

In all, a mixed bag for us.

We finished one place higher than last year’s 12th place. But we are realistic enough to assess that this year’s field was smaller and not as competitive as 2010. Last year, Penn State was the Mid-Atlantic Regional host; this year, many national-caliber teams were out at Wisconsin or PreNats. In an interesting twist, this year we placed one point behind Akron. Last year, Akron was one point behind us. I’m not sure what this means, other than it is a statistical quirk.

OK. Time to dry out and rest up for a big day at the UAlbany Invy on Saturday. Last year, we missed that as Penn State was also on Saturday. I remember calling and texting team members from a random rest area in PA to get results. And feeling guilty about it every second. This year, with Penn State out of the way, we will be there at Albany for the rest of the men’s team and the women’s team. Looking forward to it.

Penn State National Invitational
Friday, October 14, 2011
Penn State Golf Course

Team standings: 1-Penn State 47, 2-Grand Valley State 55, 3-Duquesne 77, 4-Lehigh 142, 5-Montana State 177, 6-Buffalo 178, 7-Penn 236, 8-Lock Haven 238, 9-Miami (Ohio) 248, 10-Akron 264, 11-Marist 265, 12-Ferris State 317, 13-Rider 391, 14-Carnegie Mellon 395, 15-Temple 459, 16-Florida International 465, 17-Robert Morris 501, 18-Youngstown State 505, 19-Hofstra 507, 20-Loyola 538, 21-Wofford 615

Individual results, 5.2-mile course
19-Will Griffin 27:03
23-Matt Flint 27:10
56-Ken Walshak 27:46
106-Justin Tampellini 28:41
108-Tommy Lipari 28:43
118-Arquimedes DelaCruz 29:03
125-Joel Moss 29:08
143-Mike Nicoletti 29:36