St. Anthony's take second at Nike Regionals to qualify for Nationals in Portland, Ore.
St. Anthony's Christopher Langer up in the pack at the New York Nike Regional cross country championship in Wappingers Falls, N.Y. on Saturday, Nov. 29, 2014. Credit: Patrick E. McCarthy
The wait was long, cold and icy. But that didn't make it any less worth it for St. Anthony's. A second-place finish in the New York race at the Nike Cross Regionals, held Saturday at Bowdoin Park qualified the Friars for the Nike Cross Nationals, scheduled for Saturday at Glendoveer Golf Course in Portland, Oregon.
The berth marks the second consecutive year Long Island will send a boys team to the national meet. Northport went last season. It is the first time St. Anthony's has made the year-ending race, coach Tim Dearie said.
The day had a grueling 5k race, on a course that featured snow, ice and frozen mud, followed by a more than hour-and-a-half wait for official team results. This wasn't an ordinary wait. It was a wait to find out if the Friars would be continuing a season that had them winning League, Intersectional and Federation championships.
Knowing that Fayetteville-Manlius were the likely champion, St. Anthony's had to finish second to avoid being thrown into a pool of potential at-large teams. That fate would have forced them to have to wait until Sunday to find out if they would be running westward.
When word came down that they had edged Liverpool by eight points, the Portland-bound Friars erupted in euphoria. Their season was still alive and well.
"We really had no idea [if we had made it]," Frederick Buckholtz said following the announcement. "It was so close. No one could tell . . . This is a dream come true."
Pat Tucker was the highest Friar finisher, placing eighth in 16 minutes, 6.9 seconds. The course, thanks to pre-Thanksgiving snowfall, posed different challenges than it did two weeks ago when Tucker helped St. Anthony's win the Federation title.
"It was hard mud and ice," Tucker said. " . . . The biggest challenge [was that] we wore five-eighths spikes instead of three-eighths pikes. They were a little big. It prevented us from getting our feet [fully] in the ground. But, I think we ran well with that. It felt good in the first 100 meters because it was all snow and grass. As we got into the harder, rockier parts of the course, it was a struggle."
Tucker qualified for Nike Nationals last year, but only as an individual. This year, he'll have six of his running brothers right beside him. Buckholtz finished 14th in 16:21.7. Tucker's twin brother Joseph, finished 18th in 16:23.4. Ryan Dearie finished 29th in 16:40.9. Ryan Kutch was the Friars fifth man in 17:01.4.
"Everything we've done this season has been toward making nationals," Ryan Dearie said. "That's all we've focused on."
Two LI girls in top 20. Sachem East's Alexandra DeCicco was 15th in 19:14.2 and Garden City's Steph Gerland was 17th in 19:21.4. Gerland was unhappy with her 23rd-place finish at the Federation meet and viewed Saturday as redemption.
"After Feds, I took two days off because I felt really tired and haven't taken a lot of breaks this season," she said. "I came back and felt much better than I did at the Fed meet."
Fayetteville-Manlius' Bryce Millar won the boys race in 15:48.8 and Arlington's Bella Burda won the girls race in 18:15.3.
