BETHLEHEM, Pa. -- In an enormous and highly-competitive field of 42 teams and 387 runners, the Big Red men placed ninth with 321 points in soggy conditions, defeating Heps rivals Pennsylvania (15th) and Brown (23rd). Ahead of Cornell was an improved Dartmouth squad (4th) and last year's Heps team champion Columbia (7th). Finishing 1-2-3 in the team race were perennial powerhouses #22 Virginia, #24 Georgetown, and #28 William & Mary.
To demonstrate how tightly-packed this team race was, Dartmouth's five-man average time was 24:40, compared to Columbia's 24:49, and Cornell's 24:53. Cornell's gap between the #1 and #5 runners improved from over 1:30 at Army three weeks ago to only 55 seconds today.
The senior 1-2 punch of
Nate Edelman (24:15) and
Adrien Dannemiller (24:46) led the charge in 15th and 40th places, respectively. Before the race, Coach Robert Johnson challenged his next group to run in a tight pack and they answered the call. Last year's most valuable freshman,
Brett Kelly (82nd, 25:06), led a tight pack of freshman Gabe Heck (93rd, 25:09), sophomore
Bobby Micikas (95th, 25:10), and sophomore Matt McCullough (96th, 25:10). Micikas has improved markedly in the past week after an iron deficiency slowed him in September. Freshman Dave Forward continued to show promise at the start of his collegiate career, running 25:27 for 146th place. Rounding out the varsity race were senior
Steve Soprano (167th, 25:35), sophomore
Adam Trofa (180th, 25:41), and senior
Drew Hart (201st, 25:52).
In the men's open race, junior
Chandler Kemp ran a very solid race, placing fifth in 25:26, followed by senior Tom Shouler in 15th (25:50). A middle-distance school record holder on the track,
Nick Wade broke the 26-minute barrier in his first 8k race, placing 19th in 25:59. Following close behind were freshman
Max Groves (23rd, 26:04), sophomore
Andy Arnold (36th, 26:20), sophomore Dan Wallace (44th, 26:27), and junior
David Frankel (55th, 26:34). A rejuvenated
Andrew Herring (freshman, 26:51) led the next wave of Big Red men in 79th place, with sophomore Tom Leger (80th, 26:52), sophomore transfer
Anthony Rizzo (82nd, 26:53), and sophomore middle-distance runner Will McFall (152nd, 27:27) close behind.
Complete Men's Gold Race results:
http://www.paulshortxcrun.com/PaulShort/Results/2010_CM_Gold.html
Complete Men's Open race results:
http://www.paulshortxcrun.com/PaulShort/Results/2010_CM_Open.html
Next up for the Cornell men is the Penn State National Invitational in State College, Pa., on Saturday, October 16th. The team will host the John Reif Memorial Run on Friday, October 22nd and then the Heps return to Van Cortlandt Park on Friday, October 29th.
Thanks to volunteer assistant coach Zeb Lang '03 for the recap of Friday's race.