In what would end up being a banner day, both the Geneseo men’s and women’s cross country teams won their respective meets on Aug. 29. Both teams ended up with seven top-10 finishers in each race, with the men’s team having three runners in the top five.Interestingly, the Knights sent their B-team to the event, giving the rest of the league a good look at their depth. Coach Mike Woods elected to send all of the team's freshmen to the event so that he could give them a taste of what’s to come in their athletic careers. “All the freshmen ran just so that they could get used to the college distance...I do this every year. I try to race the best athletes as little as possible,” Woods said. “This was a pretty low-key event, but our guys were going up against the other teams’ best.” The Knights can start looking forward to Sept. 13 when they will compete in the Harry Groves Spiked Shoe Invitational at Pennsylvania State University and in the Golden Eagle Invitational at SUNY Brockport. Geneseo will be going up against Division I opponents at Penn State, a fact not taken lightly by Coach Woods. “I’ll probably take the top 15 or so athletes on each team to Penn State and then I’ll take the other players to Brockport," Woods said. "Going up against DI competition, we’ll need to bring our best." The Knights will have to wait it out for the next week and a half until they get their chance to prove to prove themselves. With the knowledge that they will be facing formidable opponents soon, the Knights have high expectations going forward into the season. “We have two goals every season. One is the get invited to the NCAAs. That’s a big goal of ours every year. And second, we want to win the SUNYAC championship,” Woods said. “Plus, we want to be able to stay healthy so that we can do that.” This upcoming season looks to be another good year for the team, albeit a challenging one. The Knights have a tough September schedule, with five meets in just one month. They won’t get a chance to race on home turf until Oct. 4 at Letchworth State Park. The Knights will need to compete at a consistently high level all season to reach their goals, but if their performance at this past meet is any indication of the future, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
