ON EVE OF 2023 ECC CHAMPIONSHIP, CROSS-COUNTRY CELEBRATES 10-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF 2013 CUNYAC TITLE

10/20/2023 11:00:00 AM

The College of Staten Island Cross-Country Team will compete in the 2023 ECC Championship tomorrow looking to make their presence felt in their fourth appearance in the conference championship meet. However, the team is also celebrating the anniversary of their 2013 CUNYAC Championship squad this season, and tomorrow's championship meet gives the program an opportunity to look back on the conference title that served as the beginning of a three-year reign atop the CUNYAC.

The 2013 season found the CSI Cross-Country Team still a relatively new varsity sport offering following a reboot of the women's program in 2007 and men's program one year later. That year, the regular season saw the Dolphins place top 5 as a team across five separate meets before arriving at the CUNYAC Championship. At the meet, the team's captain, junior Andrew Pate, bested his personal-best time at Van Cortland Park by 32 seconds to finish with a time of 29:18 in the 8K. This was good for first place in the meet, but the rest of the CSI men's squad also delivered a very impressive showing. Two more CSI runners, freshmen Justin Mills and Samuel Obisanya, also finished in the top 10. Teammates Kenneth Morella and Khaled Halwani just missed the top-10, but each registered times in the top 15 as the Dolphins secured the CUNYAC title.

"The team had to do to try and bring out the best in ourselves," said Head Coach Robert Russo. "I'm glad they left everything out on the course today. Our men were focused on proving that they could be a championship team. I am so proud to see this result in a victory after a long season of training and racing well. This was truly much-deserved."

The following season, the Dolphins bolstered their championship roster with the addition of a pair of record-setting runners, Andrew Scharf and Liam McMunn. However, their bid to repeat as conference champions did not come easily and took everything the team had for the second straight season. At the 2014 CUNYAC Championship, the Dolphins were able to overcome John Jay by just six points. In order to do so, Scharf and McMunn both set new records in the 8K following up the record-setting effort by Pate one year earlier.

Now well-accustomed to adversity, the Dolphins once again faced a tough test at the CUNYAC Championship in 2015. Scharf went on to set another record in the 8K during the 2015 season, but he became ill ahead of the conference championship meet. With CSI's ability to win a third straight championship now in doubt, McMunn registered a time of 30:00.2 in the 8k, good for 5^th overall. Morella improved his own personal-best time by 30 seconds and finished just two spots behind McMunn. Despite illness, Scharf finished in the top 10 as well, immediately followed by Matthew Day and Obisanya in 11^th and 12^th.

Head Coach Russo was thrilled to have five runners in the top 12 and was very pleased with the resilience of his team. "This performance shows how well our team can continue to work together as they have throughout the season," said Russo. "We had some impressive individual performances, especially from Liam and Kenny who stepped up their efforts, and from Andrew whose been sick all week."

The 2015 title would be the last CUNYAC championship for CSI Cross-Country as the program officially departed the conference in the 2019 season when it was announced that CSI Athletics had moved to NCAA Division II. A worldwide pandemic and a great deal of change has impacted the program since that time, but the current Dolphins hope to be able to replicate the success of Cross-Country's championship-winning squads in the not-to-distant future.

Current head coach Akil St. Louis, who returned to the program ahead of the start of the 2023 season, will lead the team into the ECC Championship for the first time as head coach. The teams boasts multiple ECC Rookie of the Week and Runner of the Week honors from the East Coast Conference entering this weekend's championship meet, and tomorrow's outing will give the program a chance to showcase how far they have progressed in just a few shorts months under their new coach.

When asked about the future of the program under his leadership, St. Louis referenced the programs of the past as part of the foundation for success. "The same building blocks and fundamentals that have built successful programs in the past will be utilized here," he said. "Whether it will be through recruiting or coaching, it is important to cultivate a system of small victories to build the foundation for a winning culture. This process will take perseverance from both our student-athletes and coaches. Once we all get started on this journey toward success, the puzzle pieces will begin to come together."

Live scoring for tomorrow's meet can be found at the link here. You can also follow the meet via the official East Coast Conference video stream below.

MEET VIDEO

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