Unchallenged, Villanova Men Win Princeton XC Invitational

It's (L-R) Denault, Tiernan, McEntee, and Williamsz at the Princeton XC Invitational

The Villanova men traveled across the river into New Jersey yesterday to compete at the Princeton Cross Country Invitational.  Rather than face a stiff challenge and measuring stick in the #10-ranked Princeton Tigers, the #23-ranked Wildcats went virtually unchallenged and won the meet with a mere 23 places.  Princeton did compete -- however, it was the Tigers' "B" squad that hosted the visitors on Saturday.  The Tigers "A" squad went to Terre Haute to compete in the Pre-Nationals meet, where they finished 6th.  Back home, Princeton's "B" squad finished a distant third (135), behind Villanova (23), and LaSalle (94).  St. Joseph's (158) was fourth.

The most noteworthy comment to make about the men's performance over the 8K course concerns the tight 16-second spread between 1-5.  Indeed, Villanova's first four finishers (Patrick Tiernan, Jordy Williamsz, Sam McEntee, and Rob Denault) all finished within one second of each other in 23:50/23:51.  Brian Basili was 5th for the squad, 15 seconds behind Denault.  All in all, a nice display of tight pack running, with four men under 24 minutes.  One gets the sense that coach O'Sullivan instructed the squad to run as a group, eschewing individual times for the practice of group running.  Given the level of competition, it's hard to draw conclusions from the meet, although the top times were encouraging.  The individual race was won by Lehigh's Tyler Mueller (23:36), with former LaSalle harrier Alfredo Santana (23:40) in second.

Complete results of the race are HERE.

Here's Villanova's results:

1.    23  VILLANOVA                 (  23:54  1:59:27)

Overall Team
Place   Place
===============================================
  3      2    Patrick Tiernan             23:50
  4      3    Jordan Williamsz            23:50
  5      4    Sam McEntee                 23:50
  6      5    Robert Denault              23:51
 10      9    Brian Basili                24:06
 12   (11)    Alex Tully                  24:11
 21   (20)    Harry Warnick               24:26
 25   (  )    Kevin Corbusier             24:30
 33   (  )    Robert Hurlbut (ua)         24:38
 37   (  )    Dusty Solis                 24:41
 66   (  )    Chris O'Sullivan            25:03
 77   (  )    Mike Palmisano (ua)         25:08
 84   (  )    Charlie Bates               25:10
132   (  )    Tom Trainer (ua)            25:34