Nov. 30, 2012
PHILADELPHIA - Led by the talent and experience of a veteran group of upperclassmen, the Saint Joseph's University men's cross country team was nothing short of impressive in 2012. Under the direction of head coach Mike Glavin, the Hawks finished in the top half of their final five meets of the season, including a win at the Princeton Invitational, a second-place finish at the Atlantic 10 Championships, and a third-place finish at the IC4A Championships. Leading the way were this season's co-captains, seniors Jon Mazzio and Patrick Donnelly.
Saint Joseph's kicked off its season on September 1 at the TCNJ Blue/Gold Classic in Pennington, N.J. Glavin used the 5k to showcase his younger talent and utilize his veterans that excel with shorter distances. The race featured the freshman duo of Quinn Davis and Scott Davis. The standouts each placed in the top 20 of their first collegiate races. Q. Davis led all Hawks with an 11th-place overall finish (16:09.70) while S. Davis crossed the finish line in 18th place. Q. Davis was the first freshman to finish the 75-runner race and ran only 10 seconds slower than 2011 Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year Paul Szulewski ran at the same race of his freshman debut.
The Hawks remained in their home state for the final three weekends of September, running in the Harry Groves Spiked Shoe Invitational at State College, Pa. (Sept. 8), Temple's Friend Invitational here in Philadelphia (Sept. 14), and the Paul Short Invitational in Bethlehem, Pa. (Sept. 28). The squad placed fifth of nine teams at State College and third of three teams at Temple but saw a tremendous improvement at Paul Short where the team finished in the top third after earning the 10 spot of 37 teams.
The top 50% of the squad traveled up to Penn State to run the 5.2 mile Harry Groves race on the Blue/White Golf Course, the same location that would hold the Mid-Atlantic Regionals. Mazzio led the Hawks with his top-ten finish, placing eighth overall out of 98 runners with a time of 26:28, paced by a 5:20 mile. All of Saint Joseph's top-five finishers placed in the top half of the meet, including sophomore Logan Mohn (17th), junior Aaron Leskow (22nd), Szulewski (31st), and graduate student Dan Roark (36th).
The following weekend's 8k presented the other half of the squad an opportunity to compete on the course of the Belmont Plateau at West Fairmount Park, the would-be site of the 2012 Atlantic 10 Championships. Freshman John Egan paced all Hawks with a 15th-place overall finish (30:14.05) in a field of 28 runners, finishing in the top five for Saint Joseph's for the second time in his rookie season.
Fellow freshman Michael Coleman broke through the Hawks top-five in his second race of the season, finishing just behind Egan with a time of 30:24.96, good for 17th place. Junior Max Margiotta crossed the finish line next for the Hawks with an 18th-place finish, while sophomores Michael Cassidy (31:46.55) and Thomas Harrington (32:46.80), both competing in their first 8ks as Hawks, rounded out SJU's top five, coming in at 20th and 22nd, respectively.
With the opportunity and experience of three races of different levels under their belts, the Hawks headed off to Bethlehem on September 28 for the Paul Short Invitational.
"The first half of the cross country season is almost like the scrimmage part because you're trying to find out where you are with your team and what you need to do," explained Glavin. "You need to find out who's fit and who's not, so not everybody runs in every meet . . . The Paul Short is a humongous race. It's where the real stuff gets started."
The "real stuff" did start as the Hawks lived up to the expectation of the 37-school, 332-runner race with four of SJU's five top-five finishers crushing either personal Paul Short records or personal-best records in the 8k. Mazzio led the way for the Hawks for the second time of the season, placing 34th overall (24:44), while Leskow and Mohn finished 43rd and 63rd, respectively. Junior Michael Rankin and Donnelly rounded out the top-five for the Hawks, finishing in the top-half of all participants with 94th and 98th-place finishes, respectively.
After two weeks of rest, Saint Joseph's came back fully charged to completely dominate Princeton Invitational's 8k on October 13, winning the entire meet in a field of 24 teams. Mazzio led the Hawks once again with a time of 24:17 paced by a 4:53 mile, good for third place. The time stands as the fastest 8k run by any Hawk at any point of the 2012 season.
The meet was one of crucial significance as all top-five Hawks - Mazzio, Leskow, Mohn, Rankin, and Szulewski - crushed all of their personal-best times in the 8k, proving that each runner was only getting stronger and faster heading into the Atlantic 10 Championships.
Running on the course of the Belmont Plateau for the second time in the season, the Hawks saw Mohn pave the way with a seventh-place individual finish en route to a second-place team finish, the team's highest placing at the A-10s since winning it all in 2009. In 45th-place after his first mile (5:01.2), Mohn impressed as he improved 38 places to nab the top-ten finish and All-Conference accolades, clocking in at 26:00.5. The 38-place improvement was the most significant increase in race position for any of the top-15/All-Conference runners.
Coming through with outstanding performances of their own, Rankin and Roark placed 23rd and 26th, respectively, while Leskow and Szulewski rounded out SJU's top five. The Mid-Atlantic Regional and IC4As saw the breakthrough of Szulewski, who led the Hawks in each race. At regionals, Szulewski clocked in with a 10k time of 31:12, a personal best in the event, to finish 30th out of 170 runners. Mazzio and Mohn finished 33rd and 36th for the Hawks to help the team to a seventh-place finish out of 25 schools. At IC4As, Szulewski, Mohn, and Leskow checked in at ninth, 10th, and 11th to lead the Hawks to a third-place finish at the event.
The Hawks will lose Donnelly, Dave Manion, Mazzio, James McBride, Roark, and Andrew Townsend to graduation but look to return 18 runners in 2013.
