Tennis sneaks into NCAAs

The saying goes that revenge is a dish best served cold, meaning that it is better to wait for the perfect time to strike rather than retaliate immediately. In spring 2013, Geneseo’s tennis team dropped two matches to the College of New Jersey, with the last match knocking them out of the NCAA tournament. On Saturday April 26, nearly a year after last year’s loss, the Knights finally exacted revenge, taming the Lions in a 6-3 win to close out their regular season with a 16-4 record.

Sophomore Marylen Santos teamed with junior Amanda Rosati and won first doubles, 8-4. Juniors Dexuan and Minxuan Yuan also won at second doubles, 8-3, before freshmen Karli Hollins and Maggie Hale lost at third doubles, 8-5.

Hollins, who is battling tendonitis in her right arm, was one of the players who head coach James Chen believes, if healthy, would have earned more points for the team.

Up 2-1, the Knights continued their hard play in singles, decisively winning four out of the six matches. Santos, Dexuan Yuan, Rosati and Minxuan Yuan all won in straight sets at first, second, third, and sixth singles, respectively.

The win was not a surprise to Chen, but the margin of victory was.

“When I looked at their record and who they’ve beaten, I was hoping for a 5-4 squeaker,” Chen said, before adding that injuries prevented Geneseo from possibly winning by a larger margin.

The win allowed Geneseo to end the regular season on a high note heading into the NCAA tournament. While some casual observers might see the team’s 5-3 record this spring as a red flag, Chen notes that the losses simply reflect the schedule the team has played.

“The confidence level of the team is very high,” Chen said. “We are scheduling nationally-ranked teams…it challenges us [and] is a gauge as to where we are in our preparation.”

Chen added that the Knights’ schedule is this way because playing weaker teams does not do any favors for his team: “That’s not going to help us get ready for the NCAAs,” he said.

Before the tournament field is announced on Monday May 5, the Knights will continue to practice. Chen said that the majority of these practices will focus on the team’s doubles strategy, which involves playing well while also knowing exactly where to be on the court.

“For real good doubles at the national and collegiate level, the players who are not hitting the ball have to move,” he said. “You have to read the play and anticipate where to go on the doubles court. If we can learn how to play that kind of anticipatory doubles, then we will be good.”

The NCAA team championships start on May 19, while the individuals start on May 22.

Tennis twins double up

“When you get both of them clicking and on the same page, they’re very strong.” That’s how head coach James Chen described the play of Geneseo’s tennis players juniors Dexuan and Minxuan Yuan. In Geneseo’s most recent match against William Smith College on April 16, the Yuan sisters helped lead a spirited effort by the Knights that fell just short as the Herons came away with a 5-4 win.

Despite each doubles match being hotly contested, the Yuans were able to pull out their second doubles match 8-6, making the score 2-1 in favor of William Smith as the match headed into singles play.

With the Herons taking wins at first and third singles and freshmen Karli Hollins, Maggie Hale and Minxuan Yuan posting victories at fourth, fifth and sixth singles, the deadlocked match came down to second singles.

After taking the first set 6-3, Dexuan Yuan said that her opponent stepped up her game.

“In the next two sets, she got every ball back. I made too many mistakes so that’s why I lost,” Dexuan Yuan said. She echoed Chen’s philosophy that the player that plays more consistently and does not attempt to hit too many winners will come out on top.

Even though the match did not end the way the Knights had hoped, the twins’ improved play was a good sign.

“Together, the two of them are playing really well [right now],” Chen said of the duo, who have been playing tennis together for 12 years. In that span, the twins have developed distinct playing styles, but that does not stop them from meshing well on the court.

“I’m more aggressive in singles,” Dexuan Yuan said, before adding that her sister, who much prefers to play doubles, takes more risks in that mode of play, poaching lazy shots from opponents and dominating at the net.

While contrasting styles might appear to hinder the development of a good doubles team, Minxuan Yuan added that familiarity really helps them out.

“We know each other a lot. I don’t even have to look at her and I know where the next point is going to go. I cover her easily,” Minxuan Yuan said.

Both sisters will have to continue this level of play as the young Knights gear up for postseason action. The team only has one game left at the College of New Jersey on Saturday April 26 before the NCAA Tournament.

New Jersey, itself a tournament team, represents a significant challenge for the Knights, who will not only be seeking some momentum heading into the tournament, but also some revenge. The Lions beat Geneseo twice last season, one time bouncing them from last year’s edition of the NCAA tournament.

Chen, tennis team not disappointed by loss

While no athlete would ever say they enjoy losing, occasionally there are still positives to take away from a losing effort. The Geneseo tennis team did just that on Sunday April 6 when it just missed picking up a win against Hamilton College.

In the doubles matches, Geneseo fell behind 1-2, with only sophomore Marylen Santos and junior Amanda Rosati scoring a point. Santos and Rosati also won their singles matches at first and third singles, respectively, as did freshman Karli Hollins at fourth singles. The Continentals, however, won at second and fifth singles to tie the match at 4-4 heading into junior Minxuan Yuan’s sixth singles match.

Head coach James Chen said that by the time this match started it was already 11:00 p.m. Yuan split the first two sets, but with the clock striking midnight – and Geneseo facing a two-and-a-half-hour bus ride back to campus on a school night – she made the decision to retire in the third set, giving the win to Hamilton.

Despite the loss, Chen said that the team was able to gain something from the match. Between the carpet-like surface of the Hamilton courts and the late start time, the difficult match allowed his players to face adversity – something that was rare for them in the fall. This will become far more common, however, as the spring season leads to the NCAA tournament in May.

“On behalf of the team, they are troopers. They rolled with the punches,” Chen said. “[It] is very important to maintain your composure and to deal with what we have to deal with. At least two or three of our players had trouble with the surface, but we got over it.”

Chen lauded Hollins for playing a particularly excellent singles match. After dropping the first set 4-6 and coming back to win the second set 6-4, the third set did not begin positively for her; she went down 5-1.

“You have to give her a huge amount of credit,” Chen said. “[She was down] 5-1 and she started playing [and] didn’t give away the game and she came back and won in a tiebreaker. Really impressive.”

Chen attributes the victory partially to a change in how Hollins plays the game. Before, she played with more aggression, which sometimes caused unforced errors.

“[Hollins] has learned to keep the ball in play and sustain a rally,” Chen said. “Look at the third set. She’s down 5-1…if she made errors and lost one game, she’s done. [Instead,] she stopped making errors.”

The Knights face the University of Rochester on Thursday April 10 and New York University on Saturday April 12.

Singles vs. doubles

Flip to a television channel broadcasting a professional tennis match and it is nearly guaranteed that you will be tuning in to a singles match. Maybe it’s the versatility needed for singles; or maybe having too many stars on the court prevents anyone from standing out; or maybe it is some other reason – but practically no one cares about doubles on that level.

The only famous doubles team that I know is the American duo Bob and Mike Bryan – better known as “the Bryan brothers” – and that’s only because DJ Khaled’s song “All I Do Is Win” is pretty much about them.

The whole dynamic changes when tennis is played as a team sport. At the college level, there is usually a split between which mode players enjoy more: do they like the solitude and responsibility of singles, or is doubles – where they can cooperate and hopefully share their victories – more their style?

Rather than try to decide for myself which is better, I emailed the members of the Geneseo tennis team and asked for their opinions. Here are their responses:

Senior Clarissa Bohlmann (who – I might add – is back in her homeland of Germany after spending the fall semester at Geneseo): “I prefer playing doubles because it’s first of all more fun with someone else that can cheer you up or motivate [you] and shares the game with you. Also, I think it’s more of a commitment, as you are responsible not only for yourself, and cannot just give up without giving up the other person as well.”

Sophomore Harpreet Aujla: “I prefer to play doubles because I love to volley and play at net.”

Freshman Maggie Hale: “I enjoy doubles more because tennis is such an individual game that it is nice to have a partner on the court.”

Freshman Karli Hollins: “I prefer to play singles. I enjoy singles better because I don’t have to depend on another person to make a shot and I have control over each shot I make.” (Although Hale and Hollins might differ in their preferences, when they share a court it doesn’t seem to affect them; they are a combined 13-3 on the year.)

Freshman Ooha Kambhampati: “I think I would say I prefer to play singles. Singles is a more individual game so I can depend only on myself for mistakes and strategies. Singles is also where I feel the most comfortable playing because it’s something I can focus on. It’s a lot easier for me to play when I do not have to wonder what my partner is going to do next and how I can help them to win the point.”

As for me, I like singles. I went undefeated my senior year of high school in singles – no big deal.

Regardless, both styles of play have their merits, as each case has been made here.

The Knights play next on Sunday April 6 when they will travel to face Hamilton College.

Indoor track’s Heath breaks PR at Brockport

Setting a personal record in a track and field event is something every competitor dreams about and works toward throughout the season. Usually, PRs are improved gradually: an inch here, a couple hundredths of a second there. This was not the case for freshman Joanna Heath on Saturday March 1, however, as she won the women’s high jump competition at the SUNYAC championship meet at SUNY Brockport. Heath jumped a height of 5 feet, 7 inches – 4 inches better than her previous best.

By winning, Heath joined junior Cohen Miles-Rath (men’s 5,000-meter run), junior Keira Wood (women’s one-mile run), senior Tom Clark (men’s one-mile and men’s 3,000-meter runs), and sophomore Aidan Fullerton (men’s high jump) as league champions at the meet. The men’s team came in fourth place overall, while the women’s team claimed third place.

“I was really nervous about the high jump because that week in practice, I had been doing really [poorly],” Heath said. “I didn’t know how it was going to go.”

After she cleared 5’3” – her previous PR – on her third try, she said, “I got 5’5” on the first try, and I knew I was going to get the next one if I could just relax and do what I knew how to do.”

Heath also added a fourth-place finish in the women’s triple jump, an event that she has not focused on much throughout this season.

Even though she typically competed in the long jump and the high jump, head coach Dave Prevosti used a “wild card” on Heath, meaning she was allowed to participate despite not recording a jump of qualifying length previously during the season.

Heath’s freshman year has gone past her expectations both in terms of athletic success and finding her place on the team.

“I’m part of the best team I could ever imagine,” she said. “They’ve given me so much, and they inspire me every day. They’re some of the most hard-working athletes that I’ve ever met.”

Prevosti is as full of praise for Heath as she is for the team.

“In the high jump, she’s number three in the country right now as a freshman,” Prevosti said, noting that Heath could have tried for an even higher height, but had to leave the even to compete in the long jump. He added that Heath compares favorably to former Geneseo athlete and national outdoor high jump champion Kim DePrez ‘03.

Looking forward, Heath said she is optimistic about her chances in the ECAC meet in Boston, which the Knights will travel to on Saturday March 8, and NCAA Division III nationals, which will take place the following week in Lincoln, Neb.

“I think anything could happen,” Heath said. “I didn’t think that I was going to get 5’7”; if you had told me that, I wouldn’t have believed you at all.”

Indoor track runs past opponents

Senior indoor track student- athlete Tom Clark drew on his experience as he readied for the 3,000-meter race on Feb. 22 at the Marc Deneault Invitational at Cornell University. “I think being a fifth-year, I have a huge advantage,” Clark said after winning the race against some much-heralded competition. “A lot of what we do in distance running is based off of aerobic training, and I have five extra years of aerobic training under my belt.”

Even with extra training, Clark faced a loaded field. On top of competition from Geneseo teammate junior Cohen Miles-Rath were three Syracuse University freshmen, including Nick Ryan, who won three state championships in his senior year of high school and finished second in another.

“[Ryan] is a super talent. If I was a freshman, I would never have said, ‘I’m going to beat [Ryan],’” Clark said.

Given the race’s talent, Clark was expecting a faster pace, but once the gun went off, Clark found himself keeping up with the pack.

“It worked out perfectly for us because it was ever-so-slightly slow, but we were keeping them honest; we were right on their heels the whole time,” Clark said, referring to the Syracuse runners.

Around the midpoint of the race, Clark surged ahead and increased the tempo of the race while gaining a lead on the other runners. Over the last mile of the race, Clark maintained his speed and fought off a late kick by the younger runners to hold on for victory with a time of 8 minutes, 29 seconds.

Even though the time was the best of the day in the event, assistant coach Mike Woods said that, had the situation been a little bit different, Clark could have gone even faster.

“They didn’t race until right at the end,” Woods said. “They thought they would just sit and let him go and they could run him down. Well, they couldn’t run him down, but if they had raced from the get-go, [Clark] probably would have gone four or five seconds faster. He had more in the tank.”

Other notable performances from the invitational included Miles-Rath’s fifth-place finish in the 3,000-meter run and junior Keira Wood’s second place finish in the 800-meter run.

At a separate invitational at the Rochester Institute of Technology, junior Allison Hoh took second in the 60-meter hurdles, freshman John Panus was second in the 5,000-meter run and junior Phil Longo bested a stacked long jump field with a jump of 6.84 meters, a personal record.

The Knights will compete next at the SUNYAC championships on Saturday March 1 at SUNY Brockport.

Out of Bounds: A breakdown of Sochi’s medal count

With only a few days left in these 2014 Winter Games, let’s take a quick look at the medals table to see how everyone stacks up. I’m going with the overall medal count because I think that best illustrates the total quality of a country’s athletes, as opposed to just counting gold medals, which shows how many superstars a country has.

After trailing overall for much of the Games, the United States has taken a one-medal lead over host Russia with 23 total medals. The Russians have definitely been riding the momentum that hosting the games often brings: They already have seven more medals than they did in 2010 at Vancouver. Rounding out the top five in total medals is the Netherlands in a tie with Russia, Norway (which also boasts the most gold medals with nine) and Canada with 18 total medals.

But because this is America – the greatest nation on the globe – we have to be first in something. How does happiness sound?

According to a study by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, bronze medal recipients come in second at the Elation Olympics, with silver medalists being the most disappointed. And look! The U.S. leads the pack with 11 bronze medalists, 18 when gold and bronze are both accounted for.

It makes sense, really. Gold medalists are obviously the happiest since they proved themselves the strongest among the field, silver medalists are disappointed to be the first loser (see: McKayla Maroney in London) and bronze medalists are happy to have medaled at all. Go America.

How about a hand for Belarus and Poland? While Belarus only has six medals, five of them have been gold, while all four of Poland’s medals have been of the first-place variety.

Darya Domracheva has been tearing it up in the biathlon events for Belarus, accounting for three of the golds for her country, with Anton Kushnir and Alla Tsuper taking the others in freestyle skiing aerials competitions. Poland’s golds have come for Kamil Stoch in ski jumping, cross-country skiing thanks to Justyna Kowalczyk and speed skating, for which Zbigniew Bródka won the 1,500-meter race.

Finally, let’s give some love to medal winners from the Southern Hemisphere. From all the way down under, Australia has come up with two silver medals and one bronze in Sochi, with Torah Bright taking second-place in women’s snowboarding half-pipe and David Morris and Lydia Lassila taking silver and bronze in the men’s and women’s freestyle skiing aerials competition.

So congratulations, Australia: The rest of the world may not think of you as a Winter Olympics country, but you’ve proven that you can hang with some of the best. Now, if only you could assemble a winning bobsled team consisting of a kangaroo, koala, platypus and an emu … Maybe in 2018?

Goodman races against time for indoor nationals

A long race like the 5,000-meter run takes a great amount of concentration in order to keep pace and be aware of other runners. Thankfully, junior Cassie Goodman has found a way to handle the 25 laps on an indoor track. “The first 10 laps, I kind of just check out – I just run, don’t look at the laps, don’t look at the time too much coming around to the finish … I know it always starts to hurt around lap 12,” Goodman said. “Once it gets down to the last mile, that’s when you kind of have to start thinking, ‘OK, you have to work a little bit harder and move your arms a little bit more. Stay relaxed, but keep it moving.’”

The strategy worked for Goodman on Saturday Feb. 15, when she won the 5,000-meter race at the Tufts University Cupid Challenge indoor track meet with a time of 17 minutes, 57 seconds. Goodman helped Geneseo sweep the 5,000-meter races, as junior Cohen Miles-Rath, battling sickness at the time, won the men’s race, posting a winning time of 15:02.

Goodman’s race came down to a duel between her and two Colby College runners.

“I went in pretty confident,” Goodman said. “I just tried to keep them [at] an arm’s length the whole race, and then at the last mile, I was able to pick them off. So it was a good race.”

Assistant coach Mike Woods was with the members of the team who traveled to Massachusetts for the meet, and before the race, he and Goodman talked about her race strategy.

“Our plan was to just to stay running 43 seconds per 200 [meters], and out of 25 laps, I think she ran 0:43 on 21 of them,” Woods said.

“She spent 20 laps sitting behind two girls … I told her, with 800 left, ‘You have to move on those girls,’ so she dropped a couple 0:42s, went by both of them, and ended up winning and running her fastest time of the year, breaking 18 minutes,” he added.

Goodman currently sits 34th nationally in the event and needs to take about a half minute off her time in order to go to the NCAA Division III national meet, a tough but doable task.

“I think it’s possible … especially [at the Eastern College Athletic Conference meet, one week before the national meet]. Going in with really good competition, I think it’s definitely possible,” Goodman said. “But also, everyone else is going to get faster these next two weeks. So, you never know; it could happen.”

The Knights are back in action on Friday Feb. 21 at Rochester Institute of Technology’s Orange and Brown Invitational and Saturday Feb. 22 at Cornell University’s Marc Deneault Invitational.

Out of Bounds: 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi offer a time to celebrate

We’ve all seen them: the articles listing all of the things wrong with the athlete’s dormitories. The stories of “very dangerous” water. And the pictures of everything from a busted-through bathroom door to not-quite five Olympic rings.

In short, we’ve all had our fun with Sochi and mocking Russia’s attempt to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. And what I’d like, more than anything else, is for everyone to stop and just concentrate on what we’re supposed to be doing: coming together as one to celebrate through the magic of sports.

Yes, Russia and Sochi should have been more ready for the Games. They’ve had what, seven years? And they still couldn’t manage to get the sewage hooked up right? Even I agree that’s pretty bad. But sometimes contractors, to paraphrase the late author Douglas Adams, seem to love the “whooshing noise” of deadlines flying over their heads.

Trouble with building companies isn’t confined just to Russia, either. We’ve had a pretty good taste of that at Geneseo, where that nice stadium that was promised to be completed by spring 2014, but doesn’t look like it’ll be finished for years.

Enough complaining – let’s talk about the three reasons why we hold the Olympics in the first place. First and foremost, in my sports-obsessed mind, we want to see the best athletes in every possible sport leave it all out there on the field, track, ice, sand or court. There are certain points during the Games that you will remember for the rest of your life.

For instance, I remember getting home after a practice, walking through the door and immediately seeing Zach Parise at the Vancouver Games tie the gold medal hockey matchup between the USA and Canada in 2010. Yes, it was a short-lived celebration (damn you, Sidney Crosby), but it was epic nonetheless. That’s what this is all about, from a spectator’s perspective: creating moments and memories through sports and ath0letics.

Secondly, the Olympics are about bringing the world together to celebrate. While there has always been a tendency to get political and boycott versions of the Games just to make a statement, doing so is not its original purpose.

One of my favorite elements of the Olympics, besides sniggering at the reports of how much drinking and sex goes on in the Olympic Village, is the way in which people that would never have met otherwise meet and interact. In 2008 at the Beijing Summer Olympics, it seemed as if every single athlete from Asia was taking a picture with American basketball star Kobe Bryant. Stories like that seem to be common and not just for American athletes.

Even better than viewing this on TV would be going as a fan to the Games. Just think: You can conceivably meet people from at least half of the world’s countries – even more if it’s the Summer Olympics. As someone who is fascinated by different cultures, this would be better than a dream for me, and I hope I get to go to the Games someday so I can become best friends with someone from Bhutan or Uruguay or wherever. If you really think about it, athletics is simply the vehicle the Olympics use to foster these beautiful ties between cultures, binding us forever closer and stronger.

Lastly, the Olympics are a great way to learn in-depth details about the host nation. What did I really know about Russia before the Games outside of the facts that they used to be communists and Vladimir Putin likes to take his shirt off about as much as Taylor Lautner? Nothing, really.

Maybe this one isn’t for the casual fan who turns on curling for some background noise, but the host countries do the best they can, especially during the opening ceremony, to show what their country is all about. It’s one of my favorite parts of the Games because I get to see all of my favorite athletes, I get treated to a pretty cool theatrical performance with a fireworks display, Bob Costas’ voice soothes my worries away and I learn about the host country. In addition, it’s always interesting to hear the stories about the host country’s athletes who otherwise would never get a shot to take part in the world’s ultimate athletics competition.

My fear with so much criticism being, admittedly somewhat rightly, lobbed at Sochi, is this: Coming to Russia only a couple of decades out from the fall of the Soviet Union was a risky move by the International Olympic Committee in the same way going to Beijing was in 2008. These places weren’t the established sites that have hosted a few times, like London and Rome; they were unproven. And while I can’t recall any huge complaints about those 2008 Games, I’m sure that some people will remember Sochi as those Games where Russia really embarrassed itself. What if the wrong people remember that and stop taking risks with putting the Games in new and exciting places?

Hosting the Olympics is a matter of national pride that should not be reserved only to Western countries that have established themselves as competent Games hosts. If there’s an up-and-coming city or country that wants to put itself on the global stage and can prove that it will be done well, I say we let them have it. Their bids will have to be just as good as anyone else’s, but assuming that happens, there is no reason not to let the rest of the world share in the joy of hosting the Games that literally bring the world together.

I would like people to settle down and enjoy these Olympics. Russia got mostly everything right and only screwed up a relatively small amount down the stretch, and yet it’s all anyone talked about in the couple weeks before the Games. It’s time to focus on what matters most: intense competition, creating goodwill with our fellow human beings and watching the Canadians cry when we win gold in hockey.

Indoor track’s Longo has ‘good shot’ at postseason

Junior Phil Longo might characterize his recent performances for the indoor track team as subpar, but no one else is questioning his athletic ability or leadership skills. Being a serious threat in nearly any jump competition, Longo’s fifth-place high jump of 1.78 meters at the Golden Eagle Run Invitational, hosted by SUNY Brockport on Saturday Feb. 8, might not have been what he was hoping for. Even so, his mark beat most of a field of 29 on a competitive day all around the track.

While none of Geneseo athletes took home top honors, a number finished in second place. On the women’s side, freshmen Alexa Wandy and Joanna Heath took second in the 400-meter run and the long jump, respectively.

For the men, junior Benjamin Schwartz was runner-up in the 800-meter run, while sophomore Aidan Fullerton was second in the long jump, ahead of third-place freshman David Pollock and Longo, who finished eighth in a field of 45 athletes.

Despite his better high jump finish, Longo said that, with his relatively short stature for the event, it might be better to concentrate on the long jump.

“I realized that I’ve kind of plateaued in the high jump … It’s really not realistic that I’m going to be getting any higher,” Longo said. “In long jump, there’s definitely more areas I can improve on.”

Head coach Dave Prevosti said he believes that Longo can succeed in his events.

“He is a guy who could easily make it on the podium in multiple events at SUNYACs and beyond,” Prevosti said, in an email interview. “He is so hard working and he is a student of the sport. I always say, ‘Train hard but train smart,’ but I never have to say that to [Longo]. He just does it all the time.”

Prevosti added that Longo, a team captain whose job it is to help build the different areas of the team into one cohesive unit, “is Geneseo.”

“[Longo] embodies its co-curricular liberal arts nature and takes it to a place that I have not seen another take it. In addition to being a top student and athlete, he is [a residence assistant] and a member of a number of clubs and a cappella groups on campus,” Prevosti said. “He never gives less than his all and infects others around him with the same attitude.”

Longo’s season goals have the potential to be realized in March, when the Knights compete at SUNYACs.

“I’d really like a SUNYAC title. I’d like to win it individually and then … as a team too,” Longo said. Additionally, if he can add about 40 centimeters to his long jump, Longo said he thinks he has a “good shot” to compete at nationals.

The Knights compete next on Saturday Feb. 15 at Ithaca College’s Bomber Invitational.

Keira Wood looking to place at indoor nationals

It’s not every day that an athlete is referred to as “special.” Yet that’s the word head coach Dave Prevosti picked to describe junior Keira Wood for her performance on Saturday Feb. 1 at the SUNY Brockport Invitational. At the invitational, Wood won the mile race with a time of 5 minutes, 9 seconds. She finished four seconds ahead of second place, joining junior Allison Hoh, senior Tony George and sophomore Aidan Fullerton in the winner’s circle for the Knights.

“I wanted to break five minutes in the mile,” Wood said. “But it’s still early, so I’m happy with my race.”

Hoh won the 400-meter run and the 60-meter hurdles in the invitational, George placed first in the 1,000-meter run and Fullerton broke the school heptathlon record with 4,629 points in his victory.</p>

“She’s talent that works hard,” Prevosti said of Wood, who also has the third-best 800-meter time in NCAA Division III this season.

Winning events isn’t anything new to Wood. Already this season, she has two victories in the mile run, one in the 1,000-meter run and one with the 4x400 team. In fall 2013 she won the SUNYAC cross-country meet and last year, along with Hoh, was part of a distance medley relay team that finished third in the country at the national indoor meet. The two other members of that squad, Cailin Kowalewski ‘13 and Alyssa Smith ‘13, graduated from Geneseo but have left an impact.

“[Smith and Kowalewski], they’re just amazing people,” Wood said. “As soon as I got here, they took me right under their wing … They taught me to believe in myself because I struggled with that at first."

Now that she is an upperclassman, Wood strives to lead by example, although she said that her teammates’ performances are often just as much of an inspiration to her.

“If I’m doing an 800-meter workout, I notice the 5,000-meter girls working their butts off … It’s not just me doing the right thing and them seeing it. They do it too, and I work off of them as well,” she said.

One of Wood’s season goals is to compete at nationals, and she and her coaches have faith in her ability.

“Right in the beginning of indoor, [assistant coach Mike Woods] came up to me and said, ‘I think you can make nationals in the 800-meter run and the 1-mile run.’ That’s pretty big to try to make nationals in two events … and that scared me,” she said. “At the same time, I was like, ‘Yeah, I think you’re right. I think I maybe can.’” The team competes again on Saturday Feb. 8 at Brockport in the Golden Eagle Run Invitational.

Indoor track competes in Boston invitationals

While it’s the dream of every athlete in all sports to be able to test oneself against the best competition available, the chances for this are rare. On the weekend of Jan. 25 and 26, however, some of the men’s and women’s indoor track team not only got to compete against the best collegiate athletes but also some internationally elite runners at Boston University’s John Thomas Terrier Invitational.

Several Knights had memorable days in the meet, which was populated by a host of larger Division I schools as well as many other top Division III teams.

Generally, Division I schools are larger and can offer athletic scholarships to get top athletes, something that Division III schools are forbidden to do. The chance to compete against Division I schools is an exciting opportunity for the Knights.

Junior Keira Wood turned in one of the best performances in the meet at the 800-meter run.

“Even though there’s someone who ran 2 minutes, and 5 seconds, Keira ran 2:14 and finished in the middle of her heat. That puts her in the top two in D-III,” head coach Dave Prevosti said. “She wasn’t even in the fast heat, but she could have been. Her time puts her right in there,” he added.

Geneseo had another strong performance from the men’s distance medley relay team, consisting of juniors Tony George, Benjamin Schwartz and Colby Burke and senior Thomas Clark. The quartet completed the race in 10:04, a time that Prevosti said was good for fifth best in Division III.

“If you look at what we did with our [distance medley relay] team last year, we actually ran better at this time of the year with this team than we did with last year’s DMR team,” Prevosti said.

Even if the Knights had not done so particularly well, the meet would still have been exciting to attend thanks to two young superstars. Galen Rupp, the silver medalist in the 2012 London Olympics in the 10,000-meter run, easily won the 2-mile event at the meet. High school senior Mary Cain, hailed as having the potential to become one of the greatest American women runners of all time, also took top honors in her event, the mile run.

Other members of the team were in action elsewhere, as the field athletes competed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Art Farnham Invitational. Junior Chaz Abad and freshman John Panus took first and second, respectively, in the 3,000-meter run. Sophomore Aidan Fullerton and junior Phil Longo swept the top two places in the long jump, while senior Jake Pasanen won the pole vault. On the women’s side, freshman Joanna Heath took the long jump title.

Geneseo returns to action at the SUNY Brockport Invitational on Saturday Feb. 1.