On Oct. 24, the men’s cross country team won the 2020 Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) Cross Country Championship at Principia College in Elsah, Ill. The Flyers finished with a score of 51 points after defeating Southern Indiana on the last kilometer. This is the first GLVC title the team has won since 2004 and the 14th in program history.
Freshman Anthony Farmer, graduate student Dustin Macuiba, redshirt freshman Patrick Hennesey and sophomore Daniel Arimi earned All-GLVC honors as they all finished in the top 15 in the 8k. Farmer was second overall, followed by Macuiba in third, Hennessy 13th and Arimi 14th.
Junior Ricardo del Toro came in 19th overall with a time of 25:59.34; freshman Sean Ryan finished in 28th with a time of 26:18.52, followed by fellow freshman Casey Quinatana in 31st with a time of 26:23.69. Junior Joshua Segura placed 34th with a 26:28.76, sophomore Al Pulido came in 42nd in a 26:49.23 and senior Dan Laskero finished 57th with a 27:26.06.
Sophomores Jonathan Goetsch and Michael Jarvis finished fifth (27:2.64) and seventh (28:10.75) respectively in the men’s 8-kilometer open race.
According to head coach James Kearney, men’s cross country has been second at conference several times since 2010 when he took over the program. “I want to say five or six times we have been second, but for one reason or another we were not able to win it,” said Kearney. “We were not able to seal the deal.”
Due to the pandemic, the NCAA cancelled all national championships for fall sports, so cross country season ended after conference. However, coach Kearney remarks that winning the conference meet allowed for a huge championship experience in which the athletes took advantage of the opportunity to compete.
“One of the major things that contributed to our success was our commitment to each other,” said Kearney. “Being able to see how committed they [athletes] were to doing the right thing in and out of practice, making sure that they were attending classes, masking and social distancing, meant that there was a very much commitment to completing the season.”
Photo credit: Luke Rinne, Men’s Cross Country
