By Nick Rosa
Coming off another Northeast Conference Championship last fall, the men’s cross-country team looks to keep its stride moving forward in looking for its third championship in a row dating back to 2009.
“The first two championships are in the past, so we got to do it again, they got to win it this year. It’s a standalone event,” two-time NEC coach of the year, Coach Eric Blake, coming into his second full season as head coach of the program said.
Also going forward Blake said that improving in Regionals is very important to the team. “We would like to improve off our finish last year, which was sixteenth, that’s very important for the guys. For us to advance as a program we have to be finishing better than sixteenth at the Regional for the men,” he added.
The Blue Devils have a lot of returners this fall such as senior Sam Alexander, senior Jeremy Schmid, junior Craig Hunt, junior John Krell, senior Anthony Gonsalves, senior Mike Waterbury, and sophomore Andrew Hill.
Despite losing Rob Weston to eligibility and Ry Sanderson to graduation, who was NEC Champion last season, there is no shortage of talent that Blake can turn to. Alexander finished second behind Sanderson, while Hunt finished third in last year’s NEC championship.
Blake is already preparing his team for the championship season starting in late October with a solid performance at the first home meet this season at Stanley Park. Three home meets before NEC’s and an early season away meet at Monmouth, will help the Blue Devils get familiar with the course for conferences in late October.
The team started off on the right foot at the first home Blue Devil Invitational meet this past weekend. Coming in second with 46 points the team was in front of fourth place University of New Haven with 102 points and third place Holy Cross at 64 points. Southern Connecticut State University won the meet with 21 points.
With Alexander, Schmid, and Hunt out of this week’s first race, the team showed strong performances from Krell who won the meet in a time of 26:32. Gonsalves took sixth with a time of 27:17, and Hill finished eighth in a time of 27:20.
Senior Ben Lazarus, freshman Patrick Hubbell, and senior Mike Waterbury also competed in the race. Lazarus finished in a time of 27:49, Hubbell finished with a 28:26, and Waterbury finished with a time of 28:38.
“Everyone who ran, ran well for themselves,” Alexander said. “We’re looking to do well in the end of October going into November, and the Monmouth meet will be preview of where conferences will be held. It’ll be good to get there and show that we plan on being a force again,” he added.
“The season’s long, very long,” Blake said. “Everyone we rested are juniors and seniors and they know when to be ready and that’s the end of October beginning of November,” he added.
Blake was pleased with his runners with the first home meet and only plans on looking forward to championship season ultimately eying the third NEC title in a row for the program.
The Blue Devils will be away at Monmouth in two weeks on Sept. 17 and will be home again the following weekend on Sept. 24 for the Ted Owen Invitational at Stanley Quarter Park.