Manhattan College Invitational 2009

Photos approaching the bridge to exit the back woods.

Runners as they came up or over the top of Freshman Hill and then as they crossed the bridge coming out of the back hills.

Everything you need to know about the meet. Race times, course maps, race previews, starting boxes, construction updates, and what to eat.

Several close and exciting finishes to determine the individual race winners in Charlottesville including an incredible course record 18:02 performance by Ariel Karabinus of Osbourn Park as runner-up Katherine Walker of Brooke Point was also under the old course record in 18:13. Despite not having their usual #3 and #5 runners, the Osbourn Park girls dominated the field by a 67 point margin and team average of 19:14 on the Panorama Farms 5K course. Meanwhile, the Hidden Valley girls traveled all the way down to Nike South in Texas and left the Lonestar State as champions as they defeated the top teams in Texas by a 30 point margin of victory. In Florida, the Mountain View boys knocked off one of the top ranked teams from the Sunshine State by 9 points at the Disney Classic. More to come from this weekend's meets!

NEW YORK – Outside of the construction and some changes to the course, not much changed at the Manhattan Invitational. At least not much in the girls Eastern States championships.

NEW YORK – They were going to have to wait for a little while. It wasn’t the kind of race that anyone was going to eyeball from the finish and proclaim the winner.  So everyone waited, knowing that they had fought the good fight until Christian Brothers Academy was crowned winners of the first real cross country battle royal of the season.

The only runner capable of challenging Joe Rosa's pursuit of yet another meet record on Saturday was family. Bearing identical blue singlets and shocks of red hair, Rosa and twin brother Jim, juniors from West Windsor Plainsboro North, were indistinguishable as they surged stride-for-stride into Van Cortlandt Park's back hills on Saturday at the Manhattan Invitational.

  Don Rich of PennTrackXC.com, MaroonNews of NJ Runners.com and Tim Fulton of ArmoryTrack.com combine to bring you over 2000 photos from the Manhattan Invitational with many more to come still.