Ithaca Wins MXC Championship; Cahill Takes Individual Title
Results
The Ithaca College men's cross country team placed first out of eight teams Saturday at the 2013 Empire 8 Cross Country Championships hosted at Saratoga Spa State Park. The Bombers recorded 44 points to claim their fourth straight and sixth overall Empire 8 crown. Ithaca also ran to victory in 2003, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012.
Senior Michael Cahill of Stevens Institute of Technology won the individual title, a feat he has been chasing for years. His victory was a convincing one where he went straight to the front and won by 48 seconds. The time of 25:36 for 8K is the second fastest of his career and a 19-second personal record on the Saratoga Springs course. Cahill is the first Stevens runner in men's Empire 8 history to win the title.. Cahill also snapped a five year streak of a Bomber runner winning the crown.
Utica College placed five student-athletes in the top 25 registering a score of 62 and a team-time of 26:52, just .10 off the champion Ithaca (44 points). Stevens placed third in the team standings with 67 points, followed by Houghton (110), Hartwick (114), Nazareth (168), St. John Fisher (183) and Alfred (205).
Houghton's David Richards navigated the 8K course in second place with a time of 26:24.4.
Timothy McGowan ran to an eighth-place finish in 26:37 to snag first-team honors with Richards.
Three Bombers earned first-team All-Empire 8 honors placing in the top nine. Junior
Dennis Ryan clocked a season-best eight-kilometer time of 26:26.10 to place third out of 186 runners and lead the team. Rookie
Sean Phillips followed in fourth with a 26:26.90 finish and sophomore
Stephen Gomez placed ninth in 26:38.30.
Hartwick junior Gavin Jenkins ran a time of 26:30.5 on the course to finish fifth, a little over six seconds from second place.
Freshman Sam Anderson padded the line first for Utica placing sixth overall with a clock of 26:33.6 while senior Morgan Payne nudged two seconds behind in seventh with a time of 26:35.5.
Stevens junior
Thomas Cunningham took 10th overall with a time of 26:45.5, while senior
Louis Stengel placed 16th in a time of 27:07.5. Both Cunningham and Stengel were second-team runners at the meet with their individual placements.
Tallying second-team All-Empire 8 nods for Ithaca was sophomore
Larkin Bohanan in 11th place with a time of 26:49.80.
First-year new addition
Josh Lee dashed to a 12th place tally in his inaugural championship race while sophomore
Kyle Cairns kept pace grabbing 13th, a half-second shy of his teammate. Lee registered a time of 26:51.2 followed by Cairns'26:56.4.
Hartwick junior Matt Loignon's time for the race was 27:00.1 to finish 14th, while
Evan Magnussen was the first Cardinal to cross the finish line in 15
th place. Magnussen, who has been the Cardinals top-finisher in each race this season, was selected to the Empire 8's Second Team All-Conference.
FIRST TEAM ALL-CONFERENCE (Missing from photo: David Richards (Houghton) and Tim McGowan (Houghton)).
SECOND TEAM ALL-CONFERENCE