Edwin Rutto of St. Benedict's Prep will make his debut on Saturday in the Bronx.
A runner at St. Benedict's Prep who is from Kenya will be running in the Eastern States Championship race at Saturday's 41st Manhattan Invitational at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.
Sound familiar????
No, the legendary Edward Cheserek, who set the Vanny 2-5 mile course record of 11:55.4 at the Manhattan meet in 2011 and won 10 national titles while at St. Benedict's, isn't returning for one more high school race. He's busy tearing it up at the front of Oregon's pack.
Meet Edwin Rutto!!!
Rutto is a 16-year-old sophomore (born January 9, 1997), who is from the same running rich Rift Valley in Kenya as Cheserek.
Rutto follows on the heels of Cheserek, now a freshman at Oregon, as student/athletes who have come to St. Benedict's Prep by way of Maryknoll missionary friends in Kenya.
While it's not fair to expect Rutto or any runner to start smashing Cheserek's Van Cortlandt or Holmdel Park records and rack up double digit national titles, the coaches at St. Benedict's acknowledge the slender 5-10 Rutto has a lot of talent. How much???
I guess everyone will find out for themselves starting tomorrow when Rutto makes his U.S. high school debut on the venerable 2.5 mile course at Vanny.
St. Benedict's coach and Kenyan native Chelule Ngetich, who took over as head coach this year for now assistant Marty Hannon, is not putting any pressure on Rutto in his Saturday's debut.
``A top 10-20 finish would be good,'' said Ngetich.
I remember hearing a similar thing before Cheserek's first race for St. Benedict's Prep three years ago.
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