At the NCAA Northeast Regional Meet on Friday, the men’s cross country team continued its strong performance in the championship season, finishing 13th out of 39 teams. Junior Ethan Hausamann led the pack for Binghamton University at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. The junior took an individual finish of 39th in the 10K race with a time of 31:19.3 to earn BU’s first top-40 finish since 2010.
Not far behind Hausamann was sophomore Eric Holt in the 67th spot with a time of 31:40. Seniors Matt Johnson, Jesse Garn and Andrew Roache rounded out the top-100 finishers for BU in a solid team effort.
“Every year is a little bit different obviously,” head coach Annette Acuff said. “It was a little bit more competitive on the men’s side this year. We were really pleased. That was a great performance for us as a team — we ran really well as a pack again at Regionals.”
As has been typical for the Bearcats this season, the pack finished close together as Holt, Johnson and Garn all crossed the finish line within 10 seconds of one another. In their performance at the AE Championship earlier this month, the three finished within three seconds of each other.
Closing its team season, the men’s side will end the fall ranked 13th in the latest United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Northeast Regional polls — its fourth appearance in the USTFCCCA rankings in six years.
Despite losing senior captain Matt Johnson — Binghamton’s top finisher at the conference championship meet — Acuff is confident that the team will continue to thrive next season.
“We return three of our top five, which I think is pretty huge,” Acuff said. “We lost three of our top five from last year, and we still came back and finished just as strong.”
Even though Roache will finish his undergraduate career this spring, he still has one year of eligibility left and hopes to return to the team as a graduate student to continue his stellar career. Fellow senior Garn concluded his time running cross country, but still retains eligibility for Binghamton’s indoor and outdoor track squads. In those programs, he is sure to continue to impress as BU’s second four-minute mile runner in five years.
On the women’s side, junior Alexis Hatcher was the first Bearcat to finish the 6K race with a time of 21:48.0. The finish was good for 74th in the 275-woman race as Hatcher paced Binghamton for the fifth straight race. The 74th spot was also the highest that any Binghamton female runner has taken in seven years.
“She has certainly provided a lot of leadership and guidance,” Acuff said. “[Hatcher has been] a great role model for the rest of the women’s team.”
The women’s next finisher wouldn’t come until one minute later, as freshman Allison Davis concluded the race with a time of 23:11.1 to finish 178th. Junior Anna Corrigan took the 180th spot, finishing less than a second behind Davis with a time of 23:11.4. Overall, the Bearcats earned 29th place in the 40-team event.
“We’re very proud of both teams this year,” Acuff said of BU’s overall performance on Friday.
But it was the men who owned the day at Van Cortlandt Park.
“[On] the men’s side, we accomplished a lot this year,” Acuff said. “That’s our second conference championship in the last five years and four out of the last six years we’ve only been first or second on the men’s side in the America East conference. That says a lot about our level of success and I think the consistency speaks for itself.”