SUNY Cobleskill Mens Cross Country Takes Fourth Place at 2016 ECAC Division III Cross Country Championships

COBLESKILL - The SUNY Cobleskill men’s cross country team closed out their 2016 season on Saturday posting a team total of 163 points to place fourth overall in a field of 19 teams at the Eastern Collage Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division III Cross Country Championships hosted by the ECAC at the Hudson Valley Sports Dome. A week after placing third at their North Eastern Athletic Conference (NEAC) Championships the Fighting Tigers recorded the best finish in conference history by a NEAC team at the ECAC Championships.

Cobleskill received a pair of All-NEAC Team earning efforts from junior Anthony Bouchard, Wantagh, N.Y., Wantagh High School, who placed ninth overall in the 113-runner field by covering the hilly 8000-meter course in a time of 27:40.5 and from sophomore Josh Foust, West Sand Creek, N.Y., Averill Park High School, who finished in 25th place with a time of 28:42.1.

The Fighting Tiger scoring was rounded out by the triumvirate of: junior Zach Jacobson, Berkshire, N.Y., Newark Valley High School, in 32nd place in 29:06.1, freshman Willie Griffin, Schoharie, N.Y., Schoharie High School, who placed 40thoverall in 29:37.7 and junior Jordan Mentzel, Merrick, N.Y., Sanford H. Calhoun High School, who finished in 58th place in time of 30:45.0.

With his team’s season now over Cobleskill Head Coach Mitchell Tomaszkiewicz talked about his team’s campaign and began to look towards the future.

“Overall we had a very solid season. Last week unfortunately we had some unforeseen injuries the league championships which cost us so I was very pleased with the way we ran today and the way we dealt with adversity. We have a saying here about when things go wrong that goes, ‘You can make excuses or you can make something happen’ which is what we did today. Now we will begin to focus our recruiting efforts and runner development program during the track & field seasons towards putting ourselves in position to contend for an NEAC Championships again. We had a good season this year but now it is time to start preparing to make 2017 a great season and that begins now.”