The College of Staten Island men’s cross-country squad celebrated their finest finish of the season, grabbing first place overall at the CCNY 8K Invitational held at Van Cortlandt Park earlier today. CSI ranked first out of 11 total teams in a meet that featured 139 racers. Some controversy did loom in the race, as a total of 16 runners were disqualified due to inadvertently cutting the course.
CSI was not guilty of any disqualifications, and backed it up by having one of their best races of the season. In typical form, freshman Andrew Scharf was sensational, coming in at 29:27 in the run, his third-fastest time this season, placing him fourth overall in the entire field. Following close behind was fellow frosh Liam McMunn, who came in at 29:58, good for his third-best outing as well and 9th overall.
Sophomore Kenneth Morella was next to cross at 19th overall, finishing at 30:44. A few paces behind was Justin Mills, whose time of 31:33 netted him a 31st place finish. Rounding out the CSI scorers was Matthew Day’s race time of 33:14, good for 46th overall.
Zain Ali (33:46), Joshua Ribaudo (33:48), Richard Ruggiero (34:51), and Samuel Obisanya (35:06), also crossed for CSI, and by the end SI was able to hold off Yeshiva University by 28 points for the win. John Jay College took third place with 100 points.
?CSI will next race at the St. Joseph’s (LI) 8k meet on Saturday before they get set to defend their CUNYAC Championship at Van Cortlandt on Sunday, October 26, at 10:30am.
