After sitting out the season opener, the top runners of Binghamton’s men’s and women’s cross country teams were set loose at the Seawolf Invitational on Saturday. Led by senior Collin Frost, the men’s squad came out victorious, while the women’s team finished last out of four teams competing.
“I was pleased with both performances,” BU head coach Annette Acuff said. “It’s early in the season, we’re just getting started.”
On the men’s side, BU came out on top, scoring 33 points. They were trailed by Stony Brook at 43 points with UMBC and New Hampshire tallying 49 and 89 points, respectively. Collin Frost led both the Bearcats and the field, finishing first in a field of 45 runners with a 26:01 mark on the 8,000-meter course. Following close behind were third-place finisher senior Ethan Hausamann (26:18) and junior Eric Holt (26:25), who rounded out the top five runners.
The race went according to plan for Frost, who didn’t make his move until the final kilometer.
“He had a really good sense for the course and his goal going into it was just to sit back and let the other guys do most of the work for him early on,” Acuff said. “In an 8K distance, you don’t want to be leading the charge.”
In the last 1,000 meters, Frost and UMBC senior Hassan Omar were neck and neck, separated from the pack. With Hausamann aggressively closing in from behind, Omar fell off, allowing Frost to further distance himself.
“Ethan [Hausamann] was able to push the pace pretty hard and get Collin [Frost] away from the UMBC guy in the last 600 meters,” Acuff said. “It was a great win for him and for our program.”
With the victory, Frost was named America East Men’s Cross Country Performer of the Week for the first time in his collegiate career. Additionally, the men’s team’s rank in the USTFCCCA Northeast Region Poll was bumped up from 14th to 13th.
Despite finishing in last place, the women’s side faced tougher and stronger competition than the men’s.
“The women’s conference is very competitive if you look at it from a regional perspective,” Acuff said. “UNH and Stony Brook are two programs that will probably be top five or ten in the entire region. Both of them have great shots to have national qualifiers.”
UNH placed first in the competition with 30 points, while UMBC took second with a score of 47. Stony Brook and Binghamton rounded out the results, recording 65 and 95 points, respectively. UNH junior Laura Rose Donegan was the individual champion, running the 5,000 meter course in 18:57.
Senior Alexis Hatcher, pacing the Bearcats in five of six meets last season, once again led the team, placing 11th to complete the course in 20:00. Close behind Hatcher was sophomore Allison Davis in 18th (20:28), senior Elizabeth Greiner in 19th (20:29) and freshman Jessica Thatcher in 22nd (20:32).
“I thought that was a great start for [Hatcher],” Acuff said. “We had a group of three other girls that were packed well together that really raced to, I think, about the best of their ability.”
The Bearcats also received a sneak peak of the AE championship course, which they hope will give them an advantage when they return October 31st.
“It’s a challenging course, so it’s good that we ran it,” Acuff said. “That’s why we went down there, to get a chance to race on the course and get a good feel for it so we can know what to expect in another six weeks.”
The Bearcats’ road to the conference championships continues on October 3rd, when BU is set to participate in the Lehigh/Paul Short Run hosted by Lehigh. The first race is scheduled for 10 a.m. in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.