PAXTON, Mass. - The Worcester State Men's Cross Country Team finished fifth, just a mere five points behind Mass Maritime Academy at the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) Cross Country Championships at Moore State Park on Saturday (Oct. 31). On a perfect running day, there was a number of positive results.
"This incredibly young team has battled back from a number of team disruptions during the season including an above average amount of sickness and injuries," stated head coach Al Halper. "Some are still not at 100% due to lost training days, but I feel that everyone came ready to compete and did their best today."
Halper noted that with the exception of one athlete, everyone who has run this course previously had their best time on the course today with several improving by over a minute and a half. In addition, this team, which is made up of mostly freshmen and sophomores were very competitive among the freshmen and sophomores from the other MASCAC schools.
Michael Ricci (Peabody, Mass.), who finished fifteenth overall, was the fifth fastest freshmen at 28:31 with Christian Vera (Worcester, Mass.) also within the top ten freshmen at 29:38 and Robert Davis (Acton, Mass.) right behind at 29:39. The fourth Lancer finisher was junior, Will Whearty (Wapole, Mass.) at 30:05 and the 6th junior finisher. Sophomore, Devin Luce (Milford, Mass.), in only his second race back since the beginning of the season, was the fifth Worcester State runner at 30:38 with sophomore teammate Pat Scheeler (Wakefield, Mass.), also coming off early season injuries, just behind at 30:43. Both sophomores were among the top ten MASCAC sophomores in the standings.
Rounding out the top seven was sophomore, Jeffrey Davis (Old Lyme, Conn.) who has also lost training days due to a foot injury. In his first fully competitive race since early season, Jeff ran strong for the first 3.5 miles before he fell victim to not having been able to train intensely enough going into the Championship. "To Jeff's credit, he worked hard to maintain his position throughout the race," stated Halper. "Though he fell back some over the final mile and a half, he ran an impressive race including being able to recover enough to put on a strong finish in the final stretch."
As to the team effort, Coach Halper commented, "I am very impressed with the late season comeback of this team. They are a gritty and dedicated bunch that want to excel and are willing to do the work to get it done. The only downside this week is that we still need to do a better job trading places with those athletes just a few seconds ahead of our runners. We need to win those close battles and help ourselves to move ahead of these teams just in front of us. We now have two weeks to prepare for the next race and get ready to go after several teams we did not beat this week or earlier in the season."
The Worcester State Men's XC team will travel next to Harkness Park in Waterford, Conn. on Nov. 14 to compete in the NCAA Regional Championships.
Results can be found HERE
You can follow the Worcester State Lancers on Facebook, Twitter and by subscribing to our news updates