Last weekend, both the Geneseo men's and women's cross-country teams competed in the national championship cross-country meet at Baldwin Wallace College in Ohio.
While the men's team finished in sixth place, the women took home ninth. Geneseo, along with Williams College in Massachusetts, were the only two schools out of 32 to have both the men's and women's teams finish in the top 10.
The men's squad earned their sixth-place finish despite slower times from three of the team's top runners due to illness. Senior Bobby Henchen led the Knights with a 39th-place finish overall with a time of 26 minutes, 13 seconds.
Junior Ryan O'Connor finished right behind Henchen in 40th place with a time of 26:16. Head coach Mike Woods said, "Bobby and Ryan ran great runs, they ran just super, they really stepped up knowing our top runners were sick."
Sophomores Nick Pardee, Chris Mateer and Lee Berube rounded out the scoring for Geneseo coming in 83rd, 95th and 106th place, respectively.
Aside from finishing the race ninth out of 32 teams, the women's squad entered the race ranked ninth in the country. "Anytime you run where you are ranked, you should be really proud about that," Woods said.
Senior Sandra Goettelman led the way for Geneseo, coming in 18th place overall and earning All-American honors along the way. Goettelman said via e-mail that earning the All-American recognition was "exciting" and being named as a senior was significant because "I would never take something like that for granted; I know how much work it takes to get there."
Woods added that Goettelman had "a really strong performance" and was pleased that she was able to earn All-American recognition. He added that having both teams finish in the top 10 "really speaks to the strength of the program here at Geneseo."
Geneseo's scoring was rounded out by freshman Marissa Liberati who finished 84th, graduate students Liz Montgomery and Maggie Morris who came in 108th and 123rd place, respectively, and freshman Brigid Heenan, who finished 143rd.
With last weekend's performances, Geneseo adds to the legacy of an already fantastic cross-country program. It was the 10th consecutive year that the women's team competed in nationals and the seventh consecutive year for the men.
Woods said the program was moving "in the right direction" with both the men's and women's teams improving two spots from last year's eighth- and 11th-place finishes.