PEPPER PIKE, Ohio – With steady improvement throughout the fall, the Men’s and Women’s Cross Country seasons came to a close on Saturday at the American Mideast Conference (AMC) Championship hosted by Ursuline College. While no Falcon set any records, the men jumped two spots in 2008, to a sixth place finish of 13 squads. The NDC women finished ninth out of 14 AMC schools.
It was a meet that showed the progress of the men's team not only within the team standings but also in individual performance. Last year, the Falcon men finished in eighth place and bumped up to sixth in 2008. No one finished higher than 38th with the bulk of the team between 40th and 60th place. On Saturday, no scoring Falcon runner finished higher than 62nd.
Junior Chad Dobson (Croswell, Mich.) was the top athlete for the Falcons clocking in at 28:24.30 for a 24th place finish. Four Falcons finished in the top 50. Freshman Ross Lenehan (Austintown, Ohio) was the next highest finisher in 31st place, clocking in at 28:38.00. Closing out his collegiate cross country career was Senior Kyle Komer (North Royalton, Ohio) who was just behind Lenehan in 36th place and a time of 29:18.00. Rounding out the Blue and White in the top-50 was junior Nick Glavac (Mentor, Ohio) who was right on Komer’s heels one spot behind in 37th (29:25.80).
The Falcon women only had two finishers in the top-50 at Ursuline. Junior Cherice May (Euclid, Ohio) finished in 25th place with a time of 20:54.80 in the 3.1 Mile race. The only other Falcon runner to crack the top-50 was sophomore Fran Melzer (Maple Heights, Ohio), clocking in at 22:03.00.
The women's performance was on pace with 2007 with only the two top-50 finishers and the same number of team points (232) as the previous year's meet.
“This is a huge improvement for our guys,” said first-year head coach David Bellar. “Our top finisher was in a much higher spot that last year and I’m really pleased with the strides both programs made this season.”
NOTES FROM THE NEST…
A YEAR TO REMEMBER: The Falcon Men should be pleased with their strides this year, literally and figuratively. In addition to a faster team time than last year (2:26.23) and a higher finish, a new program record was set in 2008. Chad Dobson broke the record on Sept. 27 (Cedarville Open, 26:47.58) only to have Nick Glavac, the previous record holder, take back his title with a time of 26:00 three weeks later (Oct. 18) at the Faclon Invitational in Bowling Green, Ohio.