Syracuse cross country wins two titles in Boston

The Syracuse Orange brought out their top runners at Friday afternoon’s Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown and both squads took first place. The Syracuse men’s victory was expected but the Orange women surprised with a dominating team win.

In her first race Amanda Vestri was 2nd overall finishing with the same 17:03 as Abbey Wheeler from the Providence Friars. Laura Dickinson was 3rd in 17:06 while Jordan Jacob (7th in 17:28), Rachel Bonner (9th in 17:31) and Abigail Spiers (14th in 17:45) completed the Syracuse scoring. The Orange scored 35 points which put them well ahead of the second place Boston College Eagles who had 83. Not only did the women show talent at the front of the pack, the 3-4 runners stayed somewhat packed together.

Last year at this meet, Syracuse was 9th as a team with a score of 242 points. Their fastest runner completing the course in 17:40 so the performance last week was a big step forward and finshing ahead of Northeast regional rivals should provide a lot of confidence to this group.

Joe Dragon (24:24 for the 8k course) and Aidan Tooker (24:26) took 4th and 5th respectively to lead the Syracuse men. Kevin James followed in 11th in 24:37 as he turned in his third straight strong performance at Franklin Park. Redshirt freshmen Noah Beveridge (21st in 24:50) and Nathan Lawler (23rd in 24:52) took the 4th and 5th spots for the Orange who finished with 64 points to take the win by 27 points over the Army Black Knights.

The Syracuse men weren’t faster this year but delivered a solid early season performance. They will now enter a heavy training cycle before their next meet which is the Nuttycombe Invitational in Madison Wisconsin on October 19.