Cross Country Runners Excel at NYU Invitational
by Bradley White

The men’s and women’s cross country teams competed in the New York University Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 22, in Van Cortlandt Park in Bronx, New York. Thirty-two schools competed on the women’s side and 37 schools on the men’s side, featuring 285 women runners and 371 men runners.
The men finished 13th overall, while the women finished an outstanding seventh overall — the women ran five kilometers while the men hauled out an eight-kilometer course. On the men’s side, Bowdoin (Maine) dominated the meet scoring only 34 points and placing runners in the third, fourth, sixth, eighth and 13th places overall. Ithaca (N.Y.) also fared well by finishing in a tie for second place. Mike Styczynski of Ithaca finished first with a time of 26:12, while the best finisher for the Yeomen was sophomore Adam Greeney, who placed 49th overall with a time of 28:01, marking the first time this year that Greeney placed first on the team.
The women placed seventh overall with a score of 218, 155 points behind winner Moravain (Pa.). Both senior Laura Feeney and junior Lori Tuchfeld placed in the top 20, finishing back-to-back to pace the Yeowomen. Feeney placed 18th with a time of 19:35.14 and Tuchfeld placed 19th with a time of 19:34.83. The two both ran outstanding races, while Heidi Wolfsberger of Moravain placed first with a blazing time of 18:19.
The men’s team felt that they ran well in this national meet. “We had a pretty good meet, but we need to keep working because we can do better,” first-year Mike Penino said. Coach Gavin O’Neal’s philosophy of “cautious optimism” is beginning to grow more optimistic as the team continues to compete and the young runners continue to develop.
Fifth-year senior captain John Rogers finished second for the Yeomen and 69th overall with a time of 28:21. First-year Ryan McGinnis finished third for the Yeomen and in 70th place overall right behind Rogers. Sophomore Alex Scally finished fourth for Oberlin and 94th overall with a time of 28:50. Although Scally is a sophomore he did not run last year due to injury, so he is still getting used to running in meets and seems to be steadily improving. Filling the highly contested fifth spot was senior Hans Peterson, who ran his best race of the year. Petersen had a time of 29:30, which earned him a 132nd place finish.
As the season progresses, the team should improve as both Rogers and Scally continue to steadily get into match shape. O’Neal is also hoping that the young McGinnis can improve as he becomes accustomed to running in college.
While the men’s team reflects on individual and team accomplishments in the New York Invitational, the women were very pleased with their seventh place finish and are hoping to continue to grow steadily as a squad. The team appears to one of the best in recent memory, and if Feeney and Tuchfeld continue to run as well as they did in this race the team could finish among the top few in the conference tournament.
Sophomore Julia Goeke was third for the Yeowomen and 46th overall with a time of 20:23, while junior Kyle McKenzie was next finishing 68th with a time of 20:44. Rounding out the top five for the Yeowomen was first-year Shannon Morris, who had a time of 21:21 and finished in 95th place overall. Those five appear to have a firm grasp on the top five spots on the team. Goeke, McKenzie, and Morris are all running about the same right now and will probably continue to rotate among the third through fifth spots.
Both the men and women’s teams will take a break from meets until Friday, Oct. 5, when the Yeomen and Yeowomen runners travel to Delaware, Ohio to take part in the All-Ohio Championships held at Ohio Wesleyan University.