MXC Heads to BIG EAST Championship
11/1/2013 12:00:00 AM | Men's Cross Country
Nov. 1, 2013
SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. - Nine weeks and six meets have all led to Saturday for the Seton Hall men's cross country team as the Pirates have landed in Wisconsin ahead of the 2013 BIG EAST Championship (8K) which will be hosted by Marquette.
SHU has put together a strong campaign under longtime head coach and track & field legend John Moon, collecting four second-place team finishes that came by virtue of five top-20 individual performances on each occasion.
The Hall's nine-man contingent at the conference championship will consist of team captains Ryan Flannery (Forked River, N.J.), Carl Johnston (Surrey, British Columbia), and Tyler Orner (Sinking Spring, Pa.); junior Kevin Walsh (Deltaville, Va.), sophomore Walter Grosenheider (Madison, Wisc.) and a quartet of freshmen in Sean Kip (Union, N.J.), Alex Mallue (Canton, Ohio), Cameron Quisenberry (Owensboro, Ky.) and Victor Ricci (Narragansett, R.I.).
Flannery and Johnston finished 1-2 for the squad when Seton Hall last competed at the Leopard Invitational (10.19) and own the second and third-fastest 8K times on the team this season. Flannery clocked a career-best 27:18.14 in leading the Pirates at the Cappy Anderson Invitational, and enters Saturday having placed in the top-two on the team in all five meets in which he has scored.
The sophomore is also the Pirates' top returning finisher from last year's championship; having placed second behind then senior Jared Hanko with a time of 28:01.01.
Johnston, the lone senior on the current roster, clocked a season-best 27:35.30 last time out at the Leopard Invite and has scored in five meets so far this season as well. He has scored at the BIG EAST meet twice before, including a 70th place finish in 2010 that led the team.
Orner will be looking to score for SHU on the conference stage for the third year in a row after turning in the third-best time on the squad in each of his first two seasons. His 2011 time of 27:37.2 stands as an 8K personal record.
Walsh has battled injuries over his collegiate career but as a freshman in 2011, he finished fourth on the team at the conference meet. He has competed in all six meets to this point in the season and has earned a trip to the championship by consistently racking up improved times in this, his junior campaign.
A sophomore in his first year competing for the team, the journey to the championship reflects a bit of a homecoming for Wisconsin native Walter Grosenheider. Grosenheider has been steady over the course of his debut season, finishing in the Pirates' top-eight in five out of six meets.
Kip, Quisenberry and Ricci have been at the forefront of a freshmen class that has come on and immediately improved the team's depth and quality, collecting 17 out of 18 possible scoring performances. Ricci led SHU in the first three meets of the season; a stretch capped by a 27:09.13 8K time at the Delaware Invitational that ranks as the fastest time on the team this season. He and Quisenberry are the only Pirates to score in all six meets, and Quisenberry's 27:47.56 time last time out ranks among the top-five on the team this season at the 8K distance.
Kip has finished no lower than fourth on the squad in the last five races and previously paced the Pirates with a team-best performance at the Metropolitan Championships, joining Flannery and Ricci as the only team members who have led SHU at a meet this season.
Flannery and Kip recently discussed the season and what the team and its opponents can expect tomorrow. CLICK HERE or the link above to see what they had to say.
Rounding out the SHU race group is Mallue who has two top-25 overall finishes to his credit and scored for The Hall at both the Monmouth XC Kick-off and Metropolitan Championships.
The Pirates will be taking on a loaded field that features two nationally ranked teams in Providence (#19) and Villanova (#26) and one more in Butler that received votes in the latest USTFCCCA poll.
Departed Syracuse took the team and individual crowns a year ago making a Georgetown team that returned all five scorers from a second-place effort at the 2012 championship the top returning squad.
The Seton Hall men finished 14th at the conference meet last season, their fourth consecutive 14th-place finish. SHU's top finishes since the turn of the millennium were a pair of ninth-place efforts in 2001 and 2002 but The Hall is one of four schools in the current conference that has had an individual crowned BIG EAST champion.
Bryan Spoonire claimed the honor in 1994 with a time of 24:03.
The current Pirates will look to make their mark tomorrow when they toe the line at Wayne E. Dannehl National Cross Country Course. Start-time is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. central.
