On Saturday the University of Rhode Island men’s cross country team traveled to Mechanicsville, Virginia to compete in the Atlantic 10 Conference Championship where the Rams faced some unforeseen challenges.
Led by second-year Garrett Hartline, the Rams placed ninth out of the 15 schools competing, scoring 253 points, this score tied the Rams’ second-best mark since 2000. The winner of the meet was the University of Massachusetts Minutemen took first place with a score of 36 and second-place Loyola University Chicago scored 50 points to round out the top two. The rest of the field didn’t put up much of a fight, as George Mason secured the last spot on the podium with a score of 102, over double the score of second-place Loyola and nearly three times the score of UMass.
Rhode Island had expected to put up a better score after its third-place finish at the New England Championship just three weeks prior according to distance coach Brian Doyle. However, a series of unfortunate events left the Rams fighting uphill throughout this one, sometimes climbing that hill with just one shoe.
“One [kilometer] in we had some falls and [second-year] Nick Martin lost his shoe, so he had to run the next 7k with kind of a handicap,” Hartline said. “We just didn’t really have that number two person that we were expecting.”
Martin ran the final 2k with just one shoe and finished with a time of 25:35.6, which landed him 75th place. Had Martin not lost a shoe one could assume that he could’ve helped the Rams climb into seventh or sixth place according to Hartline.
As for Hartline, the Rams top finisher, his final time of 24:18.7 shattered his previous personal best by 14 seconds. It’s the second-best mark by any Ram since 2000, only Ben Fleicher ’24 has done better.
“Ben was our leader all through last year so it’s nice to follow in his footsteps,” Hartline said. “My coach and I were kind of planning for this to be the result at A-10s so all that work just kind of worked out.”
Hartline, in just his second year with Rhode Island, made it on to the A-10 All-Conference team for the first time in his career.
The Rams’ second-best runner was fifth-year Joe DosReis, a transfer from La Salle University. He finished 37th with a time of 25:02.1. This was a new personal best for DosReis by just five seconds.
The majority of the Rams found themselves within six seconds of each other, with times ranging from 25:29.1 to 25:35.6 they placed 68th, 72nd, 74th, and 75th.
Although the team might feel as if they could have done better, there are still some positives to take away from this year’s A-10 Championship, according to Hartline.
“We have a pretty solid freshman class…our coaches are telling us that we have some really high returners with me and Nick,” Hartline said. “We’re really going to move up in the conference there and given two years we’re going to compete for that conference championship.”
With only two athletes leaving after this season, the Rams will be returning a majority of its team for next season. This squad has landed on the podium in the New England Championship for two consecutive seasons. With multiple years of eligibility left for most of the athletes they will have more opportunities to do it again in the future.
The season isn’t over yet for this year’s Rams. On Nov. 15 they will head back to Hopkinton, New Hampshire. Three weeks ago the Rams competed in the New England Championship in New Hampshire, and now this time around they will compete in the NCAA Regional Championship.