Niagara Region Preview

Photo Credit: SUNY G XC

As the fall foliage season comes to an end, college students across upstate New York break out their winter coats and turn their collars against the frigid winds. However, Cross Country in the Niagara Region has continued to heat up as conference championships come to a close, leaving only the Regional and National Championships left on the schedule. Many teams have spent the season battling in and out of region competition to prove that they deserve a chance on the national stage, but now it all comes down to what will almost certainly be a blazing fast drag race at the National Warplane Museum in Geneseo, NY. Yes, you read that right: the Niagara Region will be contesting their championship meet on a grass airport, featuring old planes used in historic American wars. The course itself is as flat as they come, and given the competition should lead to lightning quick times.

Men’s Championship

“Hundreds of millions of years ago, Western New York and the Niagara region were underwater. Soft muds and limestone accumulated within the sea, leading to the now-familiar shells and escarpments of this gorgeous area. Many creatures thrived in the sea but only a few species had made it onto land. Well, the Niagara Region D3 cross country scene today is much the same way. Many teams exist in the sea, living their lives deep below the threshold required to make it to the national championship. However one team has made it to land. That team is SUNY Geneseo.” - Dr. Anthony Pivarunas, PhD

Being the only team featured in the D3GD Top-32 Rankings - sitting at a strong #5 - the Men’s auto-qualifier seems to be SUNY Geneseo’s to lose. The Knights have posted a stellar season thus far, and the team that they will send to the national qualifier meet on the 13th has remained undefeated. Geneseo is led by a strong 3-man group featuring junior Nick Andrews, junior Ezra Ruggles, and senior Riley Grossman. The trio of Knights also look to all be strong contenders for the individual title, with each of them having been Geneseo’s top finisher in at least one race this season. With regionals being held at their home course, it seems likely that the Knights will comfortably extend their 17-year streak of qualifying for the DIII Cross Country National Championships.

While the top spot seems to be a near-certainty, the remainder of the race features a slew of teams who have been mixing things up all year. Hamilton, who now finds themselves facing new competition due to the 10-region switch-up, has a strong pack of runners who have been performing fairly consistently all season. They have not faced a significant amount of in-region competition during the season, but they did venture out to Western NY to preview the regional course. The Continentals were able to fight off the Ithaca Bombers, with their only in-region loss being to the Knights of Geneseo. After a difficult 8th-place finish at their conference championships, Hamilton’s team will look to once again best the Bombers this coming weekend, and may even try to set their eyes on the auto qualifier.

Ithaca, nestled within the foothills of the Finger Lakes, has also had a solid cross country campaign thus far. Most recently the Bombers had a strong 3rd-place finish at their conference championship race where they only lost to out-of-region competitors, and were able to outrun fellow Niagara Region team, RIT. Ithaca Senior Ben Tiber and Junior Danny Jagoe - Ithaca’s consistent 1 and 2 runners respectively - will look to lead the team to an at-large bid, and, if their team fails to gain recognition on the national level, will be contenders to qualify as individuals. While it’s hard to compare cross country times due to the wild variances that can appear across different courses, I give a slight edge to Ithaca over Hamilton heading into this weekend, despite the Continental’s on-paper advantage of being 1-0 against the Bombers. This ranking is mainly based on College Town Bagels in Ithaca having some of the best bagels in Upstate NY, an underappreciated factor in determining running performance.

Other contenders for a top-5 finish include the University of Rochester, whose average team time at the Inter-Regional Border Battle was only 10 seconds behind Ithaca. However, the Yellowjackets conference meet results look concerning, giving the Bombers of Ithaca a stronger edge over them heading back to the National Warplane Museum. It is also worth noting that we don’t have a good data point for how U of R will fare at the regional course, as they sat their top runners for the Mike Woods Invitational and ran their B-team instead. NYU  looked strong in the early-season, but after a weaker performance at their conference championships, the Violets have a bit to prove at regionals. Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) finds themselves in a position that they are familiar with, being a darkhorse primed to strike and turn heads at the regional meet. The Tigers had a similarly concerning finish at their conference champs, but senior Aleksei Bingham will look to lead them into the top five, and hopefully earn himself an individual bid in the process. What remains to be seen is if RIT will sport their orange-frosted tips that have graced the region in the past. Atlantic Region fans can only hope that this tradition will stay true with the shift to the Niagara Regional breakdown. Also in the mix for top-5 are SUNY Cortland and SUNY Cobleskill, who have run consistent seasons and will be looking to break out at regionals.

Women’s Championship
The story for the top of the women’s field reads much like the men’s, with SUNY Geneseo a near lock for a trip to Louisville. The Knights have shown themselves to be queens of the Niagara region since the onset of the season, with the only movement in terms of rankings coming from teams well beneath them. Geneseo’s women also look to be a national force, being ranked 10th on the D3GD rankings, and the only team featured from the Niagara Region. The Knights’ top squad has only been beaten once this season, having come in second to top-ranked Johns Hopkins. As on the men’s side, the Knight’s strongest women will also be the likely contenders for top individual honors at the regional championships, with lead runner sophomore Kathleen McCarey being followed closely by sophomore Widnsor Ardner, freshman Penelope Greene, and sophomore Rachel Hershkind. Geneseo looks very comfortable to extend their national qualifying streak of 21 years, but will have to step things up to contend for a podium spot in Louisville.

While Geneseo appears to be an absolute lock for the auto-qualifier, the pecking order for the rest of the region is shaping up to be an exciting battle. Ithaca, St. John Fisher, Rochester, Hamilton, and RIT are my picks to make up the remainder of the top-5, but the sequence in which these teams will have their five fastest runners cross the finish line is anyone’s guess at this point.

The Cardinals of St. John Fisher are coming off of a strong conference meet, but out of the current in-region teams in question, they were only able to best Rochester. The Cardinals top runner, junior Riley Corey, will look to qualify as an individual, regardless of her team’s placement.

Hamilton comes in a bit under the radar, having had a solid, but not outrageous performance at the regional preview, the Mike Woods Invitational, where they placed very close to other top Niagara Region teams. Their conference meet is a hard data point to use, since all other teams from that race are in different regions. Times at this meet seemed to be on the slow side, so it’s possible that the Continentals’ performance is worth more than its face value. Only time will tell…

Out of all the schools that will toe the line at the Niagara Regional Championships, Geneseo aside, RIT performed the best over the National Warplane Museum course back at the Mike Woods Invitational. However, RIT finished well behind Ithaca at their conference meet, which was run under much slower conditions. Perhaps being from Rochester, where hills are much harder to come by and pavement is aplenty, the Tigers will rise to the occasion when they run on the grass track that is Geneseo’s new home course. Junior Katie Cobos will be leading the charge of the black and orange, eying an individual qualifier should her team not be picked at-large.

The Ithaca Bombers currently have a sizable amount of momentum, coming off of a strong run at their conference championship meet. However, the Bombers suffered a loss to RIT at the Mike Woods Invitational, which was run on the regional course, and also placed behind St. John Fisher and University of Rochester at the Rowan Inter-Regional Border Battle. Much like the men, Ithaca’s women are on the upswing, looking to continue their upward trajectory at the Niagara Region Championships.

We once again see parallels between the men’s and women’s fields with the University of Rochester. The Yellowjackets had a strong performance at the Rowan Inter-Regional Border Battle, besting St. John Fisher and Ithaca. However, coming off of a disappointing conference championship race, Rochester still has something to prove, but the talent to prove it. Just as was the case on the men’s side, U of R leaves us without many data points, given that they sat their top runners at the regional preview in Geneseo. As such, we are left waiting to see how they do in what looks to be a fast race.

Concluding Thoughts

The hay is in the barn, the stage has been set, and it’s just about time for the show. While Geneseo looks to hog the spotlight in both fields and walk away with the auto qualifiers with ease, nothing is set in stone yet. For the rest of the region, the scramble to try and place runner-up, or potentially cause the upset of the year is a heated battle, with many teams having a claim to stake in both the men’s and women’s races. Good luck to all of the teams involved, and have a great run!