Cross country prepares for A-10 Championship
The Saint Joseph’s University men’s and women’s cross country teams competed in the Princeton Invitational and the Lafayette Leopard Invitational on Saturday, Oct. 15, their two final meets before the Atlantic 10 Championship.
The men’s team placed seventh in a field of 23 teams at Princeton. The squad was led by junior David Dorsey, who placed 10th overall with an 8k time of 24:33.2, a new Princeton Invitational and 8k PR.
“We got some good and some bad,” men’s Head Coach Mike Glavin said. “The bad was we thought we’d be further up as a team… The positive side is that David Dorsey, again, ran a very good race… He’s run much faster [this season] than he’s run on the same courses in previous years.”
Senior Jimmy Daniels came in as St. Joe’s number two runner with a 32nd-place finish. Daniels finished in 24:51.9, more than a minute faster than his previous best 8k time this season.
Sophomore Justin Branco came in as the Hawks’ number three runner, placing 50th, while also setting a new 8k PR. Senior John Mascioli and redshirt junior Dan Savage finished as St. Joe’s number four and five runners, coming in 53rd and 54th, respectively.
Glavin believes one of the most important aspects for the team to focus on in preparation for the A-10 Championships is closing the time gap between their number one and number two runners.
“We’ve got to change that gap between the first and second guy,” Glavin said. “It’s still there, about 19 or 20 seconds. We’ll get killed at the conference meet if we do that. The other piece of it is, we’ve got this unbelievably dense pack of runners…Six guys are within nine seconds of Dan Savage. If we can move that whole piece up a little bit, we’re going to be good.”
The Hawks finished with 194 points, just 69 points behind A-10 rival La Salle University. La Salle finished 178 points ahead of St. Joe’s in last year’s Princeton Invitational.
“We’re coming,” Glavin said. “I just don’t know if we’ll get there in time, but we’re coming.”
At Lafayette College, the Hawks placed third out of seven teams, and were led by freshman John Walker, junior Dave Garton, and senior Mike Cassidy, who finished 15th, 16th, and 17th, respectively.
Glavin believes the race was productive, especially given the difficulty of the course.
“You can’t compare just the times because Lafayette is a…far more challenging course than Princeton,” Glavin said.
The women’s team also enjoyed a successful weekend, placing 10th out of 22 teams overall.
Sophomore Lindsey Oremus finished the 6k race 28th overall in 22:09.6, an improvement of 20 seconds over last season’s Princeton Invitational time. Although not technically recorded, Oremus set a new 5k PR.
“Lindsey actually ran a 5k PR during her 6k,” women’s Head Coach Melody O’Reilly said. “Her best 5k last year was at the Atlantic 10s. She ran 18:03.9, and she was 18 flat at 5k today [Saturday].”
Senior Sarah Regnault came in as St. Joe’s number two runner, with a time of 22:24.9, good for 39th place overall. It was also Regnault’s fastest Princeton Invitational time of her collegiate career.
Junior Cassidy Weimer also recorded her fastest Princeton Invitational time, coming in 50th with a time of 22:36.6, although she was running with a setback.
“I have to say, Cassidy had a huge PR today, and she ran with her shoe untied for about the last two miles,” O’Reilly said. “She literally was trying to hold her spike on with her toes, basically.”
Freshman Emily Bracken and sophomore Britton Gagliardi rounded out the scoring for the Hawks, coming in 73rd and 98th, respectively.
Senior Kiersten Moylan led the Hawks to a fifth place finish at Lafayette, placing 15th overall with a time of 24:23.9.
“What I was really super happy with was to see Kiersten Moylan come through with a great time,” O’Reilly said. “That course is very rugged. It’s a tough course.”
Both the men’s and women’s teams will be off next weekend, and will compete in the A-10 Championship held in Mechanicsville, Va. onSaturday, Oct. 29.
“The Atlantic 10 conference is a very, very balanced conference,” Glavin said. “You can go in there as one of the top five and come out in first, or you can go in there as one of the top five and come out in seventh. It makes it exciting. It also gives me grey hair, and I have no hair left to get grey. It’s all grey anyway.”
O’Reilly is also looking forward to the race.
“I think they’re all going to have pretty big PRs at the Atlantic 10s for 5k,” O’Reilly said. “I think we are, at this point right now, training really well together as a team.”
