CLINTON, NY – The SUNYIT Men's Cross Country Team traveled to Clinton on Saturday for the Hamilton Invitational, the team's sixth competition of the year. Although their 10th place finish out of 14 teams was their lowest of the year, the Wildcats approached the meet all week as a tune-up, and so 2010 NEAC Coach of the Year Bill Tylutki was pleased:
"We went out there today knowing that we were not going to race, at least for the first three miles," said Coach Tylutki. "And so what I look at is our team spread, and at three miles we had four guys within 1 minute, 33 seconds of each other. If we can run that close together, that's what we want to see at this point of the season."
The race, an 8k, was the men's longest of the season.
"We put in a lot of work this week, and we're coming off a race at Cazenovia where we honestly raced. So to put all that together with muddy conditions and our longest course, I'm very happy with a tenth place finish," added Tylutki.
James Grebey of Hamilton College won the race with a time of 27:28. Senior Wildcat Robert Doss (Chittenango, NY/Chittenango) was just over two minutes off the lead pace, registering a time of 29:59 in placing 21st out of 115 runners. Sophomore Chris Wicks (Baldwinsville, NY/C.W. Baker) was second for SUNYIT at 31:39 (50th place), with fellow sophomores Dylan Parry (Voorheesville, NY/Voorheesville) and Cody Russell chasing him at 31:56 (53rd) and 32:05 (56th) respectively. In 72nd place was Steve Gagnier (Croghan, NY/Beaver River) with a time of 33:01.
Full race results can be found here.
The men will travel to beautiful Geneva, NY next Saturday for the CCOC Invitational. Race time is set for 12:00 pm.