The Geneseo men’s and women’s cross country teams finished strong at the Yellowjacket Invitational hosted by the University of Rochester on Saturday Sept. 19. The men were led by freshman Lorenzo Mazzuca—who came in 30th place—and the women were led by freshman Anna Galbraith. The men finished in eighth place out of 23 teams while the women finished in 12th place out of 24 teams.
Those are good finishes—especially considering head coach Dan Moore held back the top 17 runners on each team. The difference between Geneseo and the rest of the pack begins to emerge when considering this.
The underclassmen runners had one opportunity to prove their talent at the Yellowjacket Invitational. Both cross country teams have had strong underclassmen in the past, but this year is different.
“The future of Geneseo cross country is very, very bright. We are going to be strong for years to come because these runners just keep getting better and better,” Moore said. “We beat a lot of schools, ‘A squads’ … we rested our top 17 and we were still able to come away beating some pretty big-named teams with this young group.”
Up to this point, Moore has held back some of his runners in order to give them time to rest or to have the younger runners get a chance to wet their toes. But from here on out, the Knights are going full force. With no more holding back, the Knights are at the top to stay for the rest of the season.
“We’re going to show the region and the country what we have,” Moore said. “We’re really going to turn some heads.”
The teams have some tough competition coming up in the next few weeks. They will compete on Saturday Sept. 26 at the Purple Valley Classic hosted by Williams College and then on Oct. 3 at the Mike Woods Invitational as held at Roberts Wesleyan College. Both races are going to be full of steep competition for the Knights, but the teams are used to it. All season long, their coach has been holding back some runners, but now the Knights are all ready to compete and they want to make some noise. They have goals of winning a national championship and now that they’re going full-steam ahead, any team is going to be hard-pressed to stop them.
And that’s just the way they want it.