With the Nationally ranked Syracuse Orange Men's and Women's Cross-Country teams preparing for the 2015 season, I decided to take a page from our wildly successful "Get To Know Your Orange" series. Helping me out will be former Orange runners Jessie Petersen and Max Straneva who will give us some insight on their former teammates. Syracuse begins their season on September 5th at Colgate's Harry Lang Invitational.
For today's GTKYOR, we look at Sophomore Mary Malone and Senior Joe Kush
Name: Mary Malone
Year: Sophomore
Hometown: Pittsburgh, PA
High School: North Hills
2014 Results :
John Reif Invitational- 5th place (18:03.9 for 5k)
Wisconsin Invitational- 86th place in open race (23:06 for 6k)
Coast-to-Coast Battle- 88th place (18:26 for 5k)
Harry Groves Spiked Shoe Invitational- 42nd place (22:41 for 6k)
Harry Lang Invitational- 8th place (17:24.70 for 4600m)
Kevin's 2015 Preview: The three Malone sisters (Mary and Margo's sister Shannon has transferred from Virginia) will hope to bring the same success to the Syracuse program as they found back at North Hills High School. It's tough to compare times from different years because of weather, course conditions, etc., but I will point out that Mary's time last year at the John Reif Invite was faster than Margo's freshmen year time at the same meet. It will be a great sign for the Syracuse program if Mary can follow in her sister's progress over her four year career. For 2015, I would temper expectations that Mary is ready to challenge Margo, but it wouldn't surprise to see her moving into a scoring role for the Orange women.
Name: Joseph Kush
Year: Senior
Hometown: Pittsburgh, PA
High School: North Hills
2014 Results :
Wisconsin Invitational- 5th place in open race (24:43 for 8k)
Coast-to-Coast Battle- 57th place (25:29 for 8k)
Harry Groves Spiked Shoe Invitational- 24th place (26:37 for 5.2 miles)
Harry Lang Invitational- 7th place (20:42.60 for 6400m)
Max's Thoughts: "Joe has the best hair on the team. On a more serious note, Joe is a seasoned veteran and can be a great leader for this team. Joe has great range as runner, competing well in races from 1500m to 10,000m. He has put in a lot of hard work at SU for 4 plus years now. I am excited to see what Joe can accomplish this XC season."
Kevin's 2015 Preview: I'm going to have to defer to Max on the best hair comment, although Joe's High School and current SU teammate Juris Silenkis might ask for a second opinion. I will say that Joe brings a lot of experience to the Syracuse squad in 2015. He was an alternate for the Orange for the ACC Championships, so he's clearly got the trust of the coaching staff to perform in a big meet when called upon. Joe's improved his 1500m/mile times in the last year so if he can take that progression and apply it over the 8k and 10k distances, he could fill a valuable role in his final cross-country season.