Eric Zulkofske continued his streak of top finishes for the Rhody men this past weekend, finishing in 21st out of 127 runners. PHOTO CREDIT: Contributed by gorhody.com
The University of Rhode Island Men’s and Women’s Cross Country teams traveled to Cedarville, Ohio this past weekend to compete in the Atlantic 10 Championship meet.
Despite some strong individual performances, the men and women finished eighth and 11th respectively in the conference meet.
On the men’s side, senior captain Eric Zulkofske was the top finisher for Rhody, finishing 21st out of 127. His teammate, junior Ben Fleischer finished shortly after him in 30th and fellow junior Cole Baker rounded out the top 50 for the Rams in 49th place.
Senior Jonathan Wahl finished behind them in 60th place in his first Atlantic 10 Championship meet and fellow seniors Tyler Rubush and Kellen Waters also finished in the top 100 for the Rams. Unfortunately, these performances were only strong enough to secure eighth place in the meet as conference foe La Salle went on to take the men’s title.
Assistant Coach Brian Doyle felt as though this was indicative of how much the conference has grown, rather than showing a lack of progress from the Rhody teams.
“If you look at our times, this was actually our best race of the year,” Doyle said. “I think it just shows how much better this conference is now.”
As for the women, injuries and illness were the story behind the Rams finishing 11th.
In terms of top finishers, the youth of this team shined through once more, with sophomore Corinna Vidal finishing tops for Rhody in 35th place. Senior Nicole Cassavell followed behind her to finish 50th and sophomore Brynne Wright rounded out the Rhody top three with a 52nd place finish.
Unfortunately, freshman Madeline Till, who has been a top two finisher for Rhody all year, finished in 58th, as she had been battling illness prior to the meet. The same was the case for senior Becca Durham and freshman Sophia Piccone, who finished 86th and 92nd, respectively.
Head Coach Laurie Feit-Melnick was honest and expressed her disappointment in the result for the women.
“I am not going to lie to you, we wanted to do better,” Feit-Melnick said. “Unfortunately, some of our girls have been sick these last few weeks, and it really hurt us. There were still some great individual performances, though.”
The road does not end at the Atlantic 10 Championships for either side, though, as the NCAA Regional Championships await them this weekend. Doyle sees this as an opportunity to finish the season strong.
“The good thing is we are improving every race,” Doyle said. “If we can continue doing that, we can get some good results in the regionals and NCAA Championships.”
Feit-Melnick feels similarly, claiming the Rams can finish the season on a high note as long as illness does not affect them from this point on.
“I just think we have had some bad luck with people being sick,” Feit-Melnick said. “If we can have everybody healthy for these last two meets, I’m confident we can do well.”
The Rams will get this weekend off before returning to the course to prepare for the upcoming NCAA Northeast Regional on Nov. 12 in Boston.