MEGHAN GUATTERY
Staff Writer
At 6:40 a.m. on Saturday, the men and women’s cross country teams boarded their coach bus in front of Steele Hall. They sank into their seats and prepared themselves for a three hour ride to Oberlin, Ohio for the Inter-Regional Rumble.
“Oberlin is a huge, huge race,” said senior men’s captain Christopher Shartrand. “The size is comparable to the regional championships, 300 plus runners. It truly is the ‘Inter-Regional Rumble,’ as it brings together teams from the Atlantic, Mid-East, Great Lakes and even the South and Southeast Regions.”
Even with 34 complete teams to race against, the men pulled off an 11th place overall finish.
Of the 278 finishers, Fredonia’s top five landed themselves in the 18th, 37th, 70th, 77th and 110th positions.
The leading Blue Devil was senior Zakk Hess, with a time of 26:05.1, for the 8,000 meter race.
In the past, the Inter-Regional Rumble has proved to have nothing but windy, cold and muddy conditions; this year was no exception.
“The course was in pretty bad condition from the rain and numerous runners running on it, which definitely made the race tough for us,” said Hess. “We couldn’t really get our footing which made it tough to really get going. I feel the team did well given the circumstances.”
Junior Kyle Collins followed Hess finishing less than 15 seconds behind (26:19.9).
Sophomore Cody Martini crossed the finish line with a time of 26:43.9 and was followed shortly by senior Jed Kovalovsky (26:49.8).
Rounding off the men’s top five was sophomore Bobby Cooper with a time of 27:16.0.
Freshmen Merlin Joseph Jr. and Jack Erhard were the contributing displacement runners for the men’s team.
“I feel the team did well given the circumstances, but too many runners got between us and we didn’t do as planned,” said Hess. “It’s a nice little realization to what it’s going to take for us to achieve our goals. We have two weeks until SUNYACs and that’s two weeks for us to get things straight.”
With the help of their two injured captains cheering along the side of the course, the women’s team pulled off a 24th place finish out of 40 teams with only nine members racing.
“We have a very young girls team, but each and every one of them has really stepped up to the plate and begun to prove themselves,” said senior women’s captain Amanda Cocchiara. “Individually they have all been achieving personal best times and have been working extremely hard. Every day they all run with their hearts and give it everything they have.”
The second Blue Devil to cross the finish line was junior Lauren Kotas, who finished 92nd out of the 341 finishers (24:13.1).
Bonnie Binggeli, a sophomore, trailed Kotas by a mere two seconds, clocking a time of 24:15.9 (99th).
With a time of 25:06.5, senior Emily Palmeri earned 161st place.
Sophomore Alyssa Stroud followed close behind, finishing in 169th place (25:11.3).
The Blue Devil’s top five also included sophomore Kelly Vincent, who finished with a time of 25:28.4 (200th).
The women’s team displacement runners were sophomore Kara Hall and freshman Madison Courtney.
With their final meet of the season complete, the teams are now preparing for SUNYACs, where they will take on nine other SUNY teams.
“With SUNYACs coming up in a few weeks, we would really like to put together a similar performance to last year,” said junior men’s team member Vincent Melia. “The conference is pretty strong this year but if everyone can put together a solid race, we will compete well.”
The teams will travel to Brockport to compete at the SUNYAC championship meet on Nov. 1.