A week after coming in fourth place at the Baruch College Invitational at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, the College of Staten Island men’s cross-country squad doubled their effort this morning, scoring a fourth place finish, that carried with it a second place finish amongst CUNYAC schools, at the Queensborough Community College Invitational. Despite the same overall outcome, the Dolphins’ all improved their times from a week ago, making for another solid run. SUNY-Maritime won the meet outright with 71 points, followed by Yeshiva University (77), John Jay College (88), and CSI (96).
CSI was once again led by the one-two freshman punch of Andrew Scharf and Liam McMunn. Both improved on last week’s times, with Scharf coming in 13th overall with a time of 30:20.6 and McMunn following just beats behind in 14th place at 30:41.30. Sophomore Justin Mills was next to cross, at 31:42.20, good for 27th in the field.
Kenneth Morella and Matthew Day rounded out the scoring for CSI, coming in 27th and 28th respectively with times of 31:55.50 and 33:47.90. More importantly for Head Coach Robert Russo, was that even the supporting cast had improved times. Samuel Obisanya (34:10.20), Josh Ribaudo (34:34.10), Zain Ali (34:44.10), Richard Ruggiero (35:26.20), and Patrick Kettyle (35:28.10), were all on hand to improve, and that is promising for the coach.
“The hard work is paying off,” said the reigning CUNYAC Coach of the Year. “Some of our runners are still working on getting to their peak performance so we have plenty of upside to go.”
One thing was very clear from the race, and that was the competition amongst CUNYAC schools, especially John Jay, which finished behind the Dolphins last week.
“We know John Jay is going to be after us out there,” said Russo. “It’s helping our guys stay focused and they are stepping up to the challenge.
Next week, the Dolphins will race on Saturday for the Bard College Invitational, where the competition expects to be fierce once again.
Complete race results are available here.
