Codfish and Lions and Spartans, Oh My!
Cross Country Is a Team Sport!
A Speedy Recap
First things first, a massive thanks to everyone who’s been sending me results, photos, stats, and recaps! They’re hugely helpful in helping me keep up with everything going on. This season is already proving itself to be one of the best in recent memory, and just this past weekend we saw a number of fast times and dominant team victories.
The Codfish Bowl
Last Saturday, clubs from around New England ran the 54th Codfish Bowl (AKA the BC Eagle Invitation on NIRCA’s listing) in Boston’s historic Franklin Park. Sean Ahearn, President of BC Club Running, gave me a bit of context on the meet:
The Codfish Bowl is the longest continually running XC meet in New England, now in its 54th year. Participation was low the past couple years, so USATF New England agreed to partner with Boston College Club Running to attract NIRCA teams to the meet to join the D3 teams and local running clubs already participating. From 2021 to 2022, participation increased from 44 finishers to 339 finishers, 270 of those from NIRCA.
It is also, according to Ahearn, a tradition for New England NIRCA meets to award pumpkins as XC prizes. According to Sean, “I like this tradition very much; last year when BC won a pumpkin we dropped it off the 7-story parking garage on our campus, and another pumpkin got used to make pumpkin bread. This image [see below] from [Northeastern club president] Vinny Castronuovo's Strava shows just how many pumpkins Northeastern earned yesterday.”
Northeastern’s Cam Leonard won the Men’s race by a comfortable margin of 37 seconds, running 25:10 over 8k. The next club runner to finish was his teammate, Max Manganiello, followed by UCONN’s Owen Wollenburg. Northeastern won the men’s team title, finishing with an absurdly low 18 POINTS, finishing their top five runners in 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th.
On the women’s side, the BC ladies snatched a team title despite the absence of their top runner, Juliana Dudziak, who placed 8th at XC nationals last year1. They finished with 53 points, 22 ahead of Northeastern2. MIT Running Club's Emma Wawrzynek took first individually, running 19:15 over 5k for the win.
Little Tens Invite
Well GEEZ. If you follow Reasonably Speedy on Instagram, you already saw this, but the Little Tens XC Invite in New Boston, Michigan, saw some truly crazy racing last Saturday. First things first, MSU’s Achille Bogaert ran a league-leading 24:47 over 8k last weekend, followed by his teammate Tyler Mussen in second, who ran 25:20. Bogaert is, to my knowledge, the first club runner to break 25 minutes this season, and based on a photo sent to me by MSU’s Aiden Bustillo, Bogaert didn’t exactly have much help along the way:
It was Michigan, however, who took home the men’s team title, finishing their top 6 runners in an unbroken chain from 4-9. Rumor has it that MSU — who finished 2nd as a team — were missing 4/7 of their top runners at Little Tens, but with a team as cohesive and consistent as Michigan’s, we’ll be seeing quite a battle the next time these two teams face off (more on that later).
In the women’s race, however, MRun scored a PERFECT 15 POINTS, sweeping the top 5 spots and proving that they’ll still quite possibly the strongest women’s distance club in the league3. It's also worth noting that spots 6-10 were also a sweep, this time going to Notre Dame4, who finished second as a team with a still-killer 40-point score.
Charlotte McAlpine Trail Race
Remember when I said this race would be fast? I was right. Remember when I said VT would sweep again? I was also right.
The McAlpine 5k saw its 8 top finishers dip under 16 minutes in the men’s race. Despite UNC’s Ethan Turner winning by a nail-biting .3-second margin, a pack of Georgia boys finishing 4-5-6, and Georgia Tech finishing three of their top runners under 16 minutes (placing 2-7-8 overall), it was the Tech men’s teamwork that sent them home with a W. Though Hokie Harris Naseh finished well ahead of the others in 3rd place (15:47), he was followed 18 seconds behind by a pack of 5 of his teammates all finishing in succession. In the end, the Hokies’ 3-9-10-11-12 finishes earned them 45 points, just barely squeaking past Georgia Tech’s 51. Now that’s a race.
The women’s race was, frankly, even crazier. UNC-Chapel Hill runners Maggie McCormick and Abbey McKee5 finished 1-2, followed closely by their teammates Emma Gandossy and Emerson Frantz in 5th and 10th, respectively. In most races, that top 4 is earning you a team win.
HOWEVER
Just behind Gandossy was a pack of 4 hokies, who snatched up spots 6-9 and finished within 10 seconds of each other. Just a few seconds back, right behind Frantz, Tech’s 5th runner Olivia DeCarlo took 12th (but scored as 11, since Duke didn’t have enough women to score) and locked down a narrow victory for her team by a mere 3 point margin. When the dust settled, VT had scored 41 points to Chapel Hill’s 44. I need a beer just writing all that.
Nittany Lions Invitational
The boys over at Pitt are — in case you were wondering — still really good. Even without Nick Wolk (who won the NIRCA distance triple-crown last year) and Jacob Montgomery (3rd at outdoor Nats in the 5000 and also my real-life coach), the Pitt boys put on a clinic last Saturday, sweeping spots 1-4 and locking down 10th for just 20 points overall. Pitt distance dude and former Reasonably Speedy cover guy Eli Anish took first overall in 27:14 over 8k. PSU finished second as a team with 63 points and Rutgers third with 96.
In the women’s race, Penn State finished in similar fashion. There were only three full teams in the field (PSU, WVU, and Pitt), and yet Penn State still managed to finish over 30 points ahead of Pitt in second. Sending their top runners down the chute with 1-2-4-5-7 finishes, Penn State wound up with a stellar 19-point final score. Pitt, led by last year’s track standout Caroline Beard, finished 3-10-11-12-15 for 51 points total.
A Sneak Peek into Next Week*
*Tomorrow, that is, though that doesn’t rhyme nearly so well.
NIRCA has 4 races on the calendar this weekend all over the country. In the Midwest, Illinois State is hosting the Redbird Home Meet, which will feature a 3-team showdown between ISU, Loyola, and St. Louis University.
Not too far away, Michigan State is hosting the Spartan Grand Classic, which will feature such powerhouses as Michigan, CMU, Ohio State, Purdue, and — of course — MSU, as well as smaller but still-dangerous teams like Akron, GVSU, and Ball State. Remember how I just said that I want to see the MRun men race against a full-force MSU? It looks like I’m getting my wish, though Achille Bogaert isn’t on the start list. Nevertheless, I’ll be watching the results closely.
In the Northeast, teams will be congregating in Highland Park on Saturday for the Brown Bear Invite. Based on the start list, I’m tempted to simply call this NIRCA XC Heps. Plenty of Ivy League and otherwise New England-y teams will be toeing the line tomorrow, including BU, Brown, Northeastern, Stony Brook, UCONN, UMass, and Yale. The weather in Providence tomorrow morning is set to be in the low 50s, with a 97% chance of rain. That, folks, is what we call true cross-country conditions.
Down south, Tennessee is hosting a race in Knoxville that will feature a number of the standout teams from McAlpine last weekend. Georgia and Georgia Tech will both be in attendance, as well as South Carolina and, of course, Tennessee. It’s set to to be raining there, though it ought to be a little warmer. It’s bound to be quite a battle between the two GA-based clubs, not to mention TN on their home turf.
She was just busy, I’m told — she’ll be back!
Who says I can’t do math!
You hear that? Somewhere, a Virginia Tech runner is typing.
Do the Notre Dame women call themselves the Notre Dames? Because if they don’t they should.
Who I will now exclusively be referring to as the UNC emcees