Cross Country Competes at NCAA Regionals

Friday, November 10

Bronx, NY

TBA

Army West Point

Northeast Regional Championships

Cross Country Competes at NCAA Regionals

November 11, 2023 | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country

Bethlehem, Pa - The Army West Point cross country team's competed in the NCAA Regionals on Friday morning.

The men had an 11th place finish and the women had a 14th place finish.

Erick Lara led the way for the Black Knights with a 58th place finish and a time of 30:45.6, Marc Baroncini was just behind him in 60th with a time of 30:46.2, Anthony Diaz was one spot back of him at 30:47.0.

Claire Lewis led the way for the women with a 42nd place finish at 20:50.5. Next in line for the Black Knights was Mikayla Cheney at 20:56.2. Laurynn Sisneros ran a 21:20.1.

COACHES CORNER

On the women:
Today was not our best day. We had a few outstanding individual performances, but collectively we weren't as good as we have been and that led to our finish. The weather was great; calm winds and cool temperatures made for ideal racing conditions on a course that is pretty flat. I thought Claire and Mikayla ran outstanding races. The pace was quick from the gun and we had prepared the team for that and expected them to respond to a very strong pace and they went right with it. We had a good group running together early but there was some attrition at the midway point and only Claire and Mikayla managed to stay together through 4k. They ran the best races they have ever run. We had higher hopes from the rest of our team and we were just off today. I can't point to a reason why but we just weren't as good as we had hoped. that happens in sports and we get measured by how we respond to these types of outcomes. On the whole, this group of women had an incredible cross country season and there is a lot of optimism for the future.

On the men:
We did some things well today but not enough to finish as high as I thought we could. We did a nice job of getting out into the race and packing up but where we finished was too far back in the pack to push us up in the standings. I really thought we could compete for a top ten finish. I told the guys to expect a hot early pace that might then settle down into a strategic race as the top teams jockeyed for position. We were a part of that early slow down and we stayed up there through the halfway point. Then when the race tempo started to pick up, we were not able to hold our position. In the end our entire top 5 finished within 12 seconds of each other. That was great pack running. We just need that grouping to be up closer to the front of the race. We pride ourselves on a tight pack so I was proud of the guys for their execution. They will figure out eventually. We had a lot of young guys in that pack so there is a lot to look forward to with these guys.