Catching Up With Syracuse XC as They Prepare for the 2016 Season

The Syracuse Orange 2016 Cross Country schedule was released last week, and as expected the teams will race a lot of familiar courses this fall. Right now the team is in the important part of preparation for the Fall as they build their distance base. I was able to catch up with members of the team over the weekend after they had finished their weekly long run.

Team members were excited about the summer training, and shared which meets they were looking forward to this season. The Orange men told me that they don’t look at the upcoming season as defending their National Championship, but rather “going out to win this year’s title”, as Colin Bennie put it. Philo Germano added that the group was motivated by talk that other teams were coming after them this Fall. As a group the men admitted that knowing other teams were after them, helped fuel the summer training. Freshman Aidan Tooker told me that he’s excited to join the program and is looking forward to the upcoming season.

The Syracuse women are returning after the second-best NCAA finish in program history, and team members Shannon and Mary Malone, along with newcomer Madeleine Davison spoke about the 2016 schedule.

Syracuse gets things started with races at Colgate (September 3rd) and Penn State (September 10th), but the season will really kick off at Virginia in late September when the Orange should run their full roster for the first time.

Syracuse will then head back to the Wisconsin Invitational where they will have the opportunity to secure NCAA bids with a strong performance against a tough field. After that, the Orange will head into the championship portion of their schedule with the ACC Championships in Raleigh, followed by the NCAA Northeast Regional in New York City. The 2016 NCAA Championships will be held on November 19th in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Stay tuned to Nunes Magician for more season previews, as well as the return of “Get to Know Your Orange Runner.”