Cross Country Has Strong Showing At Paul Short Invitational

Saturday, October 5

Bethlehem, PA

Army West Point

Paul Short Invitational

Cross Country Has Strong Showing At Paul Short Invitational

October 05, 2024 | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country

BETHLHEM, Pa. – The Army West Point cross country teams competed in Paul Short Invitational. The women's sixth place team finish is its best in meet history. The men had their best finish since 2019.

Louisa Diamond led the way for Army with her 31st place finish and time of 20:45.8. Joanna Halfhill was the second best Black Knight finisher coming in 44th place with a time of 20:55.8. Leah Richardson and Charlotte Richman were 73rd and 75th respectively, with Ava Bushaw not too far behind in 80th. Army placed five runners in the top 100 of a race with 1,289 competitors.

Nathan Davis led the way for Army with a time 23:57.8 to place 19th overall. Marc Baroncini came in 22nd with a time of 23:58.8. The next finisher for Army was Anthony Diaz in 64th with a time of 24:28.5. Adam Furman came in 75th at 24:34.2. The men ended with four in the top 100 of a race with 1,263.

Next up for the Black Knights is the NJIT Highlander Invite on Oct. 12.

COACHES CORNER
Men- The men raced really well today. Our 7^th place team finish was our best finish at this meet since 2019. I told the team after the race that there is no other race like this one because there is no other cross-country course that can hold the number of runners that this course holds. It is a chaotic start with 40+ teams on the course. In all close to 400 runners toed the line at the start. It is wide open for about 500 meters and then funnels down to a 15m wide running lane after the first 600 meters. The first mile is a crush of humanity. The course is packed with men running side by side and it doesn't really start to thin out until 2 miles into the race. Our guys got out into the race and were up in a very competitive spot near the front. We had talked about the importance of contact with teammates within the race which is something we have worked on in practice and today we did a good job of executing that concept and it made a big difference in the overall outcome. Nate and Marc did a nice job of pushing each other throughout the race. They were together at the mile, separated by a second or so at 5k and pushed together all the way to the finish line. Their times of 23:57 and 23:58 are the third and fourth fastest times ever run by Army men on this course. They have both made significant improvements in training fitness as compared to last year and today it showed in their race performance. We had some other strong runs from some young guys that have made a big leap in both training and expectation. Adam Furman had a nice breakthrough and Gavin Hansen was a solid number 5 for us. We have more improvement that we can make and the guys will continue to build off of this strong start to the competitive season.

Women- We have this meet on our schedule because it can be the most uncomfortable cross-country experience that you could have. It is pure chaos. There are literally thousands of athletes, thousands of fans and hundreds of teams all preparing to race in one of six races that start in the morning and go well into the afternoon. It is very easy to get over stimulated by distractions that are out of your control. The rest of the season is easy compared to what we experienced today. And today, our women managed the chaos and competed very well. We are experienced, deep and talented and while we were far from perfect today, our 6^th place team finish was our best team finish at this meet since I have been here at Army and likely our best finish ever. We were beaten by some good teams but the list of teams that we defeated is also a who's who of good Northeast regional foes and strong teams from the Mid-Atlantic region. Measured against the Ivy league schools, we were third. We beat all but Princeton and Harvard and 7 of the 8 Ivy league schools showed up today. We beat all of the Patriot League teams and all of the Big 10 and ACC teams that toed the line. We were good up front with Louisa Diamond and we were strong in the middle with Joanna Halfhill, Ava Bushaw, Charlotte Richman and Leah Richardson. But what was most impressive was our spread from number 1 to number 5. Our spread of 26 seconds was the 2^nd best spread of the 42 teams in the race. Only the winning Harvard team had 5 runners cross the line in less time (14 seconds) than our women. We knew that we could pack it up today and we knew that if we did that in this race, it would equal a positive outcome. The women deserve a lot of credit for how they executed. We didn't get exactly everything that we thought we could get out of this meet, but we came close, and our effort was excellent. This is a veteran group, and they have very big goals. They were excited about the outcome today but not satisfied.