Random MAAC thoughts …

I know I have posted a lot of numbers in the past few entries here (Prinz, you must be in heaven). Allow me to follow up with some actual words now, regarding Friday’s successful MAAC meet at Van Cortlandt Park …

Women’s meet: What a great day for our program, and a thrilling meet to watch and to coach! At one point, I turned to my assistant coach du jour Posch and said: “You know, Bill, if the meet ended right now we would win!” Our ladies got out hard but in control, establishing position and proving we meant business. And yes, at the 1-mile mark, we were leading.

Now, that’s all well and good. But at Vanny, you gotta earn it in the Back Hills. And our ladies certainly did that, and more, from my perch near the bridge. It was thrilling to see our women charging out of the Back Hills and ready to kick to the finish. All those Bowdoin Park hill repeats paid off!

It was great to see senior Addie DiFrancesco bust out with a breakthrough race, despite having a rough week of aches and pains before the meet. Addie went out hard, mixed it up with the Iona women, and made it stick from start to finish. It set the tone for the entire team.

Coach Chuck deserves a lot of praise for preparing the women’s team well – physically and mentally. He provided a great race plan, and the team executed it to near perfection. He mentioned the boatload of 6km PRs – Vanny and otherwise – that were achieved, as well as the vast overall program-wide improvement over the MAAC meet from two years ago here.

It was a great day, and really just the beginning for a team with an extremely bright future.

Men’s meet: The Iona men’s team is in the MAAC, but they are literally in a league of their own. The Gaels won their 21st consecutive MAAC title and they are ranked 10th nationally right now. For them to sweep a MAAC meet is not unheard of, and that’s what they did.

After their 1-2-3-4-5 sweep, though, it was gratifying to see our three leaders go 6-7-8. After that, though, we witnessed the growth and strength of the MAAC, as Rider and Fairfield both ran extremely strong meets and challenged us for our traditional second-place standing. We hung on for the seventh year in a row, but it was not easy.

And again, that is mostly due to other teams’ running strongly. Top to bottom, our men ran a very good meet with a ton of Vanny PRs. There were a few exceptions, but for the most part it was an excellent effort for our team.

The MAAC meet is the beginning of the championship season. We now switch our focus to the NCAA Regional, to be held for the first time in Buffalo, in two weeks; and after that, the ECAC/IC4A Championships in three weeks, back at Van Cortlandt Park. Championship Season is what our athletes have been working toward for months, and it was good to start off on a positive note at MAACs.