Cross country shines heading into break

With the weekend behind them, the Geneseo men’s and women’s cross country teams can look ahead to an excellent remainder of their season thanks to their stellar finishes on Saturday Sept. 27 at the Pre-NCAA meet in Mason, Ohio. Both teams had top-two finishes, with the women winning their race and the men coming in second place. The women’s team finished with two runners placing first and second––seniors Cassie Goodman and Alyssa Knott––while also placing seven total runners in the top 20. The men’s team had one top-five finisher with senior Cohen Miles-Rath placing fifth. The team as a whole ended up with five of the top 32 runners.

The only option that the Knights have now is to maintain the level of excellence that they have had throughout the entire season. The teams are in a great position largely due to that fact that some of their runners had unbelievable race times. Miles-Rath completed the eight-kilometer race with a time of 24:02.62, helping the Knights hold on to their victory. Goodman and Knott were the first two finishers of the women’s six-kilometer competition, finishing in under 21:12.00.

“They put themselves on the map. They ran the best races of their lives and they answered the bell,” head coach Mike Woods said.

Now in good standing, the Knights can look ahead to Saturday Oct. 4 when they host the Geneseo Invitational at Letchworth State Park. The competition looks stiff; teams including Dickinson College pose a real threat to the Knights’ goal for victory.

“I don’t think that I need to stress this one as much; the athletes seem to know what’s at stake,” Woods said.

After Saturday, things start to cool down for the Knights. They will have two weeks off before going back to work on Oct. 18 at the Inter-Regional Rumble in Oberlin, Ohio. The two weeks off should be a welcome rest for both teams, who will have had six races in the past four weeks. It will give them the time that they need to recover from injuries and take a break from the mid-season grind.

Although the Geneseo cross country teams have made this season look relatively easy so far, they have had a difficult season. Anytime that you finish first or second at the Pre-NCAAs, your team is going to be a bit tired the next weekend. The Knights are going to have to overcome their fatigue if they plan on winning this coming meet, something on the top of their to-do list.

Cross-country to run in 11th NCAA race

It’s business as usual for the Geneseo men’s and women’s cross-country teams as they head to their 11th consecutive national championship, an NCAA record. The Knights received at-large bids from the NCAA to attend the national race in Hanover, Ind. on Saturday Nov. 23. In the regional race on Saturday Nov. 16 at Letchworth State Park, neither team was able to earn an automatic bid, as the men came in third and the women came in fourth.

The teams came into this season unsure of what their destiny would be. The men lost many runners to graduation last year, including All-American Alex Brimstein ‘13, leaving the bulk of this year’s team in the hands of underclassmen. The women, similarly, were very inexperienced prior to this season, with runners stepping out of their comfort zones to uphold the standard.

Head coach Mike Woods saw this transition coming and decided to change things up. He said he kept the intensity of the workouts longer into the season than normal, and the runners responded surprisingly well.

“My athletes fed back to me that they felt fresher,” Woods said.

Even with the change between this year and last on both teams, the expectations never changed.

“There was no question that [we would make it],” co-captain junior Cassie Goodman said about making the NCAAs.

“It is hard to say it was sort of a goal because we kind of expected it [given the streak],” co-captain junior Cohen Miles-Rath said. Goodman came in 15th overall for the women and Miles-Rath placed third for the men in the regional race.

This mindset does not come out of nowhere, though. Woods has been at the helm of this Geneseo cross-country program for 22 years and has learned what it takes to get the best performance from his runners.

“[Woods] being really enthusiastic and motivated to get us there motivates us as a team,” Goodman said.

Now that both teams made it to nationals, they can actually relax now.

“There is not a lot of pressure,” Miles-Rath said. “It is more about the experience,” he added. “We run a little bit but we just, like, hangout,” Goodman said. She also mentioned that the girls take time to go shopping on this trip. “There’s not much more training you can really do,” she added.

The upcoming race is at a course Geneseo has been to within its streak.

“It was a pretty tough course, and the times were kind of slow,” Woods said of the last time he was at the course. He, along with his athletes, however, will not be upset if they walk away without a trophy.

“My expectations for them are to have an enjoyable trip, have fun and race as hard as they possibly can,” Woods said. “Let the chips fall where they may.”

Cross-country finishes first and second in SUNYACs

On paper, the men’s and women’s cross-country teams had a day anyone would be proud of. The women came in first, earning the crown of SUNYAC champions, while the men were just edged out by SUNY Cortland, earning second place. While he is proud of the women for becoming SUNYAC champions, not walking away with two SUNYAC titles leaves head coach Mike Woods a little bitter.

“I’m [happy] and I’m not,” he said of the races. “Our guys ran their best race of the year … but we came up empty.”

Junior Ryan Moynihan led the Knights with a time of 25 minutes, 8 seconds, good for third place, followed by junior Cohen Miles-Rath eight seconds later with 25:16 at fifth, both earning first-team All-SUNYAC honors.

It’s not as if the men’s team underperformed, either. Nine runners broke 26 minutes, something Woods has never seen his team do, and it was the fastest pack of the year at 37 seconds.

Sophomore Brendan Wortner also earned All-SUNYAC honors on the second-team and junior Sean Fisher and freshman Alex Kramer on the third-team.

The highlight of the day happened on the women’s side, though.

Junior Keira Wood took first overall in a come-from-behind win down the last 200 meters of the race. Not only was it her best time of the year, but Woods described her race as “perfect.”

“My goal was to make the top seven,” Wood said. “I wasn’t expecting to win.”

It may not seem to be the case, but cross-country is a mental game. Without a sound mind, it is difficult to win, and it wasn’t until this race that Wood was able to hone that part.

“I was really calm before the race,” she said. “I wasn’t overthinking it.”

The team doesn’t win, however, without the performance of the other four runners, who all earned All-SUNYAC honors. Without sophomore Jacquie Huben on first-team, junior Joanna Castrogivanni, junior Cassie Goodman and freshman Sara Rosenzweig on second-team and junior Alyssa Knott on third-team, Wood said she woudn’t have earned the first-place finish.

“Running with my teammates [in the race] has been so helpful,” she said. “Looking around and just seeing all blue and gray – it’s just amazing.”

The season is not over, though. The next race is the NCAA Division III Atlantic Regional Championships on Nov. 16 at Letchworth State Park, Geneseo’s home course.

Woods says he is hopeful about this race due to the fact that both the men and women won at this course earlier in the year. Knocking on wood, he said, “We’ve got to do it again.”

Nationally-ranked men's and women's cross-country take second at Oberlin

If there is ever a time in the cross-country season to be gearing for the playoffs, a race with over 30 Division III teams would be that time. In the Inter-Regional Rumble, hosted by Oberlin College, the Geneseo men’s and women’s cross-country team’s stepped up against and placed second against the tough field. The 34-team field represented different regions across the country and included numerous nationally ranked teams.

On the men’s side, the Knights, then ranked 19th in the nation, beat out No. 20 Allegheny College and No. 31 University of Rochester but lost to sixth-ranked New York University.

Sophomore Brendan Wortner finished first for Geneseo with a time of 25 minutes, 37.5 seconds, barely edging out co-captain junior Cohen Miles-Rath by a tenth of a second.

This was a performance by Wortner that head coach Mike Woods was excited about.

“He is establishing himself,” Woods said. “He has arrived as a runner.”

Wortner had an “up-and-down” freshman year, as Woods put it, but chalked it up to the differences between high school and college cross-country.

The last three runners among the top five seem to be transitioning into the college ranks smoothly: junior Ryan Moynihan, freshman Alex Kramer and freshman Matt Jorgensen all finished within one minute of each other.

The women fared just as well as the men, but against arguably tougher competition, seeing that every team in the top five was nationally ranked. Geneseo led the field at 10th in the nation but could not beat No. 15 NYU, as two of their runners finished top five overall.

Co-captain junior Cassie Goodman finished first for the Knights, 14th overall, with a time of 22:17.

The highlight of the day came when the fifth runner for Geneseo, senior Mary Aldridge, crossed the finish line with a time of 22:33, just 16 seconds after Goodman. This was the fastest pack Woods has seen.

“It was a historic run for us,” Woods said. “This is 22 years I’ve been coaching, and we’ve never had a pack run under 20 seconds and [finish this well].”

Both teams remained nationally ranked with the men moving up one spot to No. 18 while the women fell one spot to No. 11. Woods, who used to pay little attention to national rankings, said he believes the women should be among the top 10 teams. The women who ran in the open 6K for nonvarsity competitors stacked the top 10, finishing second through sixth and ninth.

The SUNYAC championship race is set for Nov. 2.

Improvement remains cross-country goal

Much like the Harry Groves Invitational at Pennsylvania State University, the Geneseo men’s and women’s cross-country teams went into the Western Invitational on Saturday Sept. 21 with little expectation. “Well, you know, you just break it down to the bare-minimum essentials,” head coach Mike Woods said of his game plan going into the race.

In addition to the largely unknown competition heading to another country, the Knights haven’t raced at this course, nearby Western Ontario University in Canada, in six years - factors that made preparing difficult but also carefree.

“My mindset going off to that race was just to have fun,” co-captain junior Cohen Miles-Rath said. Miles-Rath came in 13th place overall, first for Geneseo, with a time of 25 minutes and 55 seconds, a whole minute faster than the week prior.

The team finished in eighth place out of 18 teams, which, on paper, may not seem like much to be proud of. Looking at the statistics, however, helps bring the true picture into focus.

The Knights’ top five finished within 42 seconds of one another, a six-second improvement from the race at Penn State. The average time in this race was 26:22. At Penn State it was 27:08. Runners three through five for Geneseo finished within 12 seconds of one another at Penn State and within five seconds of each other at this race. The course conditions were very sloppy, according to Woods, which made these improvements even more impressive.

As long as we keep moving in the right direction, all I can see is going up,” Miles-Rath said.

The end result for the women was very similar to that of the men, but the story getting there was not the same.

“The women went out real tentatively because there were hills [in the first mile],” Woods said. “We went out in the middle of the pack and there just wasn’t enough room through the first mile and a half to move up.”

Co-captain junior Cassie Goodman finished 18th overall in the 5,000-meter race with a time of 18:57.

Woods said that about halfway through the race, Goodman was “probably 55th or 56th” but was able to “make a really good move” to finish in the top 20.

The rest of the runners held their own and were able to finish within 35 seconds of Goodman, something Woods said he was excited about. Runners two through five finished within 12 seconds of one another.

“We had our best one-through-five pack of the year with 35 seconds,” Woods said. He added, “Our goal is to get under 40 seconds, and they did on a tough course.” The team finished ninth overall.

The next race for the Knights is not until the Geneseo Invitational at Letchworth State Park, right in Geneseo’s backyard. This race will include competition the Knights are used to facing on a regular basis. Geneseo runs this course frequently in practice, so the runners will not have the unknown factors facing them as in these past two races. The race is set for Oct. 5.

Division I competition no problem for Geneseo cross-country

The Geneseo men’s and women’s cross-country teams traveled on Saturday Sept. 13 to run in the Harry Groves Spiked Shoes Invitational, hosted by Penn. State (yes, Division I Penn. State). This was a race that had runners from all three divisions competing against each other. One would think this would be intimidating to the Geneseo athletes but the results say otherwise. “It was kind of cool!” captain junior Cassie Goodman said of facing higher divisions. Goodman ran a time of 22 minutes and 10 seconds, good for 18th place overall and first for Geneseo. All but one runner finished under the 23 minute mark, and the runner that didn’t missed it by two seconds.

The Knights came in second amongst the Division III schools, losing to Johns Hopkins, the Division III national champions, and sixth overall (nine teams ran). Not stellar results but seeing that they beat two Division I programs (West Virginia, Mt. Saint Mary’s) and SUNYAC rival SUNY Cortland, which Goodman described as “insane,” the Knights had a good day.

“We held our own,” Goodman said. “It’s always cool to be up against the big schools.”

Another highlight of the race came from runners two through seven: they all finished within nine spots of one another. Most notably junior Alyssa Knott, whom head coach Mike Woods describes as “the energizer bunny” of the team, finished with a time of 22:45, good for 31st overall.

For the men, there was “good news and bad news,” Woods said. The bad being that a few of his runners were dealing with “respiratory infections” all week and weren’t able to perform as well as they hoped. The good news came from sophomore Brenden Wortner who came in 11th, officially.

Wortner had an “up and down” season last year but was able to surprise Woods, in a good way, at this race.

“That was a career race for [Wortner],” Woods said. “That was the best cross-country race he has had as a Geneseo athlete.”

The “bad news” wasn’t even all that bad. The top seven finished within a minute of one another and all had a pace below 5:20.

The Knights came in seventh overall (eight teams in the field) and third among the Division III competition.

“When I’m studying the results, it wasn’t as bad as I thought,” Woods said. “We were fairly close time wise to the guys ahead of us.”

Neither the men’s and women’s team won the race. But there were a lot of good things to gain from the day. Being a Division III school pinned against Division I and II schools should have been daunting but Goodman said, simply, “it was cool.”u

Young cross-country team has high hopes

The Geneseo men’s and women’s cross-country teams have a combined 24 straight NCAA appearances, a tradition set by head coach Mike Woods. And after the Daniel Walker Invitational Aug. 30, it’s safe to say the winning tradition is not lost on the freshmen. Woods said he uses the invitational as a warm-up for the newcomers so they can “get their feet wet” to cross-country at the collegiate level, but it seemed more like the freshmen dove head first into their first college meet.

On the men’s side, the Knights claimed nine of the top 12 spots, including first overall. Freshman Matt Jorgensen, who took first place, posted a time of 25 minutes, 55 seconds, beating the second-place runner by 20 seconds.

“He is a legit runner,” Woods said. Jorgensen was Woods’ top recruit, and he said is already proving his worth. “[He will] certainly be in our top seven and possibly the top five before the year is over,” he said.

The spotlight doesn’t solely belong to Jorgensen, as freshman Adam Murphy came in third, just 24 seconds behind Jorgensen. Not far behind Murphy, the next nine Geneseo runners finished within a minute of one another and took seven consecutive spots.

Woods said he wasn’t surprised by the outcome of the meet.

“I knew I had a great recruiting class on the men’s side for freshmen, and now it’s starting to take shape,” he said.

The women’s team performed similarly, earning second, third and fourth in the race and having seven runners finish in the top 12.

Woods said he had nothing but praise for his women runners, most notably for freshman Marissa Bellusci. Woods said Bellusci had a “down” senior year in high school, but that did not stop him from recruiting her. Bellusci finished in second with a time of 19:43.

“Boy, did she look good Friday,” Woods said. “She was running really well.”

Freshmen Ashley Peppriell and Sara Rosenzweig were not far behind, both finishing at 19:46.

It looked as if graduating seven runners from the men’s team and six from the women’s would create a lull in this year’s season, but that does not seem to be the case. Woods said there is a lot of depth in both teams and he is hopeful for more NCAA success.

The next race is not for another two weeks, but Woods said he is not worried about the time between meets. He said the runners really buy into his philosophy of training more and competing less. It allows the team to really “go to the well,” he said, come race day

On Sept. 13, the Knights travel to Pennsylvania State University to compete against top-tier programs and Division I teams at the Harry Groves Invitational. Woods will take the top 20 runners with him, and after their first go at collegiate-level races, multiple freshmen have promising chances to make the roster.