The University of Rhode Island men’s cross country team concluded their season on Saturday at the NCAA Northeast Regionals, where the Rams finished 27th place out of 38 schools.
The event took place in Contoocook, New Hampshire and was a 10-kilometer race, marking the first and only 10k race of the Rams’ season. Rhode Island faced off against some of the premier programs of the Northeast such as Harvard University, Yale University, Boston College, Providence College and Syracuse University. Syracuse would win the race with a score of 75. It was followed by Harvard at 97 points, while Cornell University rounded out the podium with 106 points.
The Rams were led by second-year athlete Garrett Hartline, who finished in 87th place with a time of 31:46.82 minutes. Following the race, Hartline felt as though he and his team could have done a lot better.
“It was a pretty upsetting performance for the whole team and kind of myself included,” Hartline said. “It wasn’t horrible, there wasn’t nothing good that came out of it, there were some glimpses of what could have been a good race.”
Hartline cited early struggles that put him behind from the start and made it difficult for him to mount a push later on. It wasn’t as though the Rams were bad from start to finish, it was just an incomplete performance according to Hartline.
“We went out really hard and that was in our race plan,” Hartline said. “At halfway I started to regain some of that good feeling that I like to have during races, so I started to move my way back up, but there wasn’t really enough time left in the race to get where I wanted to be.”
Most of Rhode Island’s squad has only competed in a 10k at the collegiate level once or twice before.
“For the team as a whole we don’t have that many 10k specialists,” Hartline said. “A lot of guys are capped out at 8k… it might be detrimental to the team’s performance.”
It doesn’t help that this is one of the most competitive and largest fields that the Rams compete against throughout the season. Three schools – Syracuse, Harvard and Cornell – are all in the top 30 of the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association poll. However, the team does their best to ignore the pressure of competing against the likes of the Ivy League powerhouses or Atlantic Coast Conference stalwarts.
“It’s definitely a different experience having to compete against super high-level programs,” Hartline said. “But me and my coach both know that they’re not gods, they’re just people and so you can go out and compete with them even if they are known to be the best in the country.”
Other Rams who had strong days include third-year Lars Hogne who set a new personal best with a time of 33:00.6 minutes, this time placed Hogne 170th of the 256 runners.
With the season over and Hartline having at least two seasons of eligibility remaining, the focus shifts towards next season and what there is to look forward to for the Rams.
“We have a lot of the same guys coming back and we have a pretty good young squad,” Hartline said. “I’m looking forward to racing with this same set of guys two years in a row.”
Hartline, along with many other athletes on the cross country team, will also be a part of the Rhode Island men’s track and field team. Their indoor season begins on Dec. 5 when the Rams host the URI Heptathlon in the Mackal Field House. The Rams have a chance for redemption as the track and field team will look to win their fifth indoor Atlantic 10 title in a row, which is a feat that has never been accomplished in A-10 history.