Harrier Manhattan 2010

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October 9, 2010                                                                                            Edition - No. 9
The Eagle Harrier
Title Match Wednesday!
Eagles Excel in Manhattan

Bronx, New York - The J-E Eagles hoped that their trip to Manhattan would generate some momentum for this week's championship race against Marcellus. If Saturday's sixth-place finish is any indication, the Eagles are ready to take their second Liberty Division crown in-a-row.
J-E ran in the ‘Varsity E' race, the fifth race out of eight varsity boys races on the day. The Eagles finished just ‘out of the money' as the top five teams received awards, and J-E finished sixth. Here are the top ten teams in J-E's race (26 complete squads):
1 Shenendehowa 69      2 Smithtown 73      3 Suffern 112
4 Liverpool 157             5 St. Joseph by-the-Sea 214
6 Jordan-Elbridge 226    7 Auburn 242        8 Conestoga 278
9 Rye 339                   10 West Islip 339
     The Manhattan College Invitational was represented by fourteen different states, and almost 10,000 runners. The race course is held in the famous Van Cortlandt Park - the most prestigious of all high school cross country race sites. The four kilometer (2.5 miles) distance is also something unique about this race as normally high school racers run three mile races. This was J-E's 23rd trip to the race.
     Senior Greg Bader continued his assault on the J-E Cross Country record book by placing ninth in his race. "Greg joins Jeremy Cornue as the only J-E harriers to place in the top ten of a race held at Van Cortlandt" said Coach Roman, "he has surpassed some hall of fame runners from J-E with this most recent effort". Bader's time was 13 minutes and 48.93 seconds.
Junior Steve Slonosky was just a few places back of Bader finishing 22nd place (14.08). Slonosky passed teammate Jack Gugel in the last 400 meters of the race. Gugel finished 26th (14.13) and said: "I was like a fish out of water after the first mile of the race", "I got out too hard and was completely exhausted". Gugel became the fastest J-E freshman ever to compete on the Van Cortlandt Park course.  Tom Poppe was 78th (15.29), just missing a top-75 medal, and Scott Sullivan was 91st (15.44) to round out J-E's scoring. Carlin Coomey and Rob Patterson also ran the varsity race finishing in 98th and 106th places respectively (15.52 and 15.56).
     J-E's Junior Varsity squad placed 15th with Alex Suslik leading the way in 49th place (15.41). Suslik's time was J-E's fifth fastest on the day. The Cheney brothers (Derrick and Ben) were next for J-E in 62nd and 63rd places respectively (15.51.42 and 15.51.98). All three received medals for their top 75 places. Jared Bard was J-E's 4th man finishing in 123rd place (17.03) and Shawn Phillips rounded out the scoring (153rd/17.47). Nick Muehlberger (186th/18.38) and Nick Byrnes (196th/19.16) also competed for the Eagles.
     J-E fielded a freshman team for the first time in school history and had very promising results. The team, led by Dylan Whittico, placed 6th out of 16 complete teams. Whittico was 27th in a time of 7 minutes and 19 seconds over the 1 and ¼ mile course. Right behind Whittico were teammates Mike "ONE SHOE" McDonald and Nick Parkolap (37th and 38th) who finished with identical times of 7.28. Dean Comstock was J-E's fourth man (74th/7.53) and Jay Paquette rounded out the scoring in 79th (7.56). JP Patterson also competed and finished 88th (8.04).