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By ELLIOTT DENMAN
Thomas Awad was an excellent runner at Long Island's Chaminade High School, building a solid portfolio of honors before his graduation in June 2011.
But look at him now - Awad has gone beyond excellent as a University of Pennsylvania junior.
He's a sub-four minute miler (as the 2014 Penn Relays Olympic Development champion
in 3:58.34) and one of the brightest young collegiate distance prospects in the nation.
As Penn coach Steve Dolan recently told The Daily Pennsylvanian, "some guys in real competitive situations get nervous; he doesn't fear it, he welcomes it."
"He's making the kind of sacrifices you have to make to be a great runner in terms of training and lifestyle. That's inspiring to those around him."
Awad put it this way, "I really don't think about being an underdog. I have the confidence (now.) You have to be able to run a lot of different ways, and I think I'm pretty good at that."
Awad turned in another sizzler Saturday, leading home a 301-runner pack to win the men's championship race at the annual Princeton Invitational Meet. On the fast, flat West Windsor Fields five-mile route, Awad (clocked in 24 minutes flat) fought off Virginia Tech's Stuart Robertson (24:01), Stony Brook's Eric Speakman (24:05) and Maryland Baltimore County's Hassan Omar (24:06) in
a tight finish that had four over the line in just six seconds.
Virginia Tech's number-two man, Darren Barlow, claimed sixth, but any question about the team winner would be answered in a space of just a single second. Running in lockstep, five Villanova men claimed the 7-8-9-10-11 spots in a virtual blur.
Harry Warnick, Brian Basili, Sam McEntee and Robert Denault were credited with 24:20s,
laggard Jordan Williamsz with a 24:21. They're another global galaxy - junior Warnick hails from
Fairfield, Ct.; grad student Basili from South Orange, N.J.; grad student McEntee from Australia; senior Denault from Canada, and junior Williamsz from Australia.
With that five-man rush, Villanova (the nation's eighth-ranked team) easily retained its Princeton team crown with a 45-point score and a 24:21 average.
Next in line in the 37-school field were Virginia Tech (71), Awad's Penn squad (139), Bucknell (179) and UMBC (198.)
Virginia Tech senior Sarah Rapp, out of Raleigh, N.C., took top honors in the women's 6K with a 21:11 win - by the narrowest of margins over Staten Islander Christina Melian, the Stony Brook junior out of Susan Wagner High School (21:12.).
But it was Villanova again in the team race - taking the 5-7-8-18-20 places for a 58-point total with Stephanie Schappert (21:44), Angel Piccirillo (21:52), Siofra Cleirigh Buttner (21:54), Sydney Harris (22:09) and Nicole Armstrong (22:11.)
Virginia Tech ran a close second at 63, with Penn (122),Stony Brook (156) and Bucknell (210) 3-4-5.
In the "open" races on the Princeton card, Haddonfield, N.J. product Marielle Hall, the NCAA 5000-meter champion for Texas, took the women's event in 21:48, and Johannes Motschmann of Germany ran off with the men's race in 24:16.
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When Mick Byrne left smallish Iona College for the big-big University of Wisconsin six years ago, followers of the sport knew that he'd guide his new Badgers to height after height in the sport.
And that's exactly what's happened. UW remains one of the NCAA's top forces.
But those same followers had no idea how Iona would fare in the post-Mick Byrne era,.
With Ricardo Santos now at the helm as Byrne's successor, would the Gaels return to smaller-time objectives and descend to a level in keeping with their status in all the New Rochelle school's other
sports?
Well, guess what, all those who expected Iona to take a cut in stature have been proven wrong-wrong-wrong.
And the doubters needed only to check out the results of the Wisconsin adidas Invitational Meet
Friday at the Thomas Zimmer Course in Madison.
While the big news was Syracuse's smashing triumph over 35 rivals gathered from all over the
nation - Coach Chris Fox's Orangemen won it all with a low score of 85 points (on a team average of
24:05 over the five-mile route) - it was Coach Santos' Iona team beating out Coach Byrne's host
Badger team for second spot, 154 to 176, and a team average of 24:11 to UW's 24:13.
Completing the top 10 in Madison were Portland (211), the now Jim Rosa-less Stanford team (220), Northern Arizona (225), UCLA (236), Washington (267), Michigan (296) and Florida State (296.)
So look for Syracuse - listed sixth in the most recent national rankings - to make a big leap upward,
and for Northern Arizona (third) and Portland (fifth) to take a drop.
Then again, Iona (listed 14th) is sure to move up and Wisconsin (ninth) to descend. Santos'
Gaels, who had a 1-to-5 25-second spread at the wire, outran no less than five teams previously ranked above them.
Other Northeastern team placings were Providence in 11th, Princeton 23rd, Dartmouth 24th,
Harvard 26th and Columbia 27th.
Harvard grad Maxim Korolev, now running as a graduate student at Stanford, won it all in 23:43,
fighting off Northern Arizona's Fotsum Zienaseleassie (23:47) and Washington's Aaron Nelson (23:51.)
A tighty-packed unit - five men just 14 seconds apart - won it all for Syracuse, and could easily be he formula carrying Fox's Orangemen to the National heights. And "Cuse ran with just one senior its top five - its secorers junior Martin Hehir in seventh, freshman Justyn Knight in 14th, senior Max Straneva 17th, sophomore MJ Erb 23rd and junior Dan Lennon 24th.
But in Badgerland, a lot of other focus was on the Iona-UW battle for second.
Jake Byrne, a senior from Ireland, got the Gaels rolling with 11th place, and he got solid backing from Chartt Miller, a sophomore from Australia (22nd); freshman Gilbert Kirui of Kenya (27th), Mike O'Dowd, a senior from Colts Neck, N.J. (35th) and Andrew Kowalsky , a senior from Canada (59th.)
Proving how global this sport really is was this: the five Iona scorers hailed from five countries.
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Northeast teams found far less success in the companion women's 6K race at Wisconsin.
While Michigan State's Lady Spartans led the way with 87 points and a 20:10 five-runner average,
with Arkansas (191) second and Iowa State (212) third, relegated to spots far back were Virginia in ninth, Syracuse 12th, Dartmouth 19th, Boston College 21st, Iona 22nd, Providence 24th, Columbia 28th and Cornell 31st.
Indiidually, Iowa State junior Crystal Nelson won it all in 19:35, tracked over the line by Michigan State's Rachele Schulist (19:39), Arizona State's Shelby Houlihan (19:41) and Boston College's Liv
Westphal (19:43.)
Does the 2014 Georgetown University women's team have the right stuff needed to win back the NCAA title claimed by the 2011 Hoya squad?
Good question, and Coach Michael Smith's team continues to deliver some pretty good answers.
Ranked No. 4 in the nation this week and No. 5 the week before, the Georgetown women figure to continue rising in the ratings after their big-time triumph in the Pre-Nationals Invitational hosted by Indiana State Saturday at the NCAA-championship LaVern Gibson Campionship XC Course in Terre Haute.
In perhaps their biggest tuneup meet before "the real Nationals" return to Terre Haute on Nov. 22, the Hoyas put three runners in the top 20 and wound up with the winning score of 110 points with a 21:09.46 average over the 6K route.
Left in their slipstream were No. 1-ranked coming-in Michigan, No. 3 Oregon, No. 7 Colorado and a whole lot more.
This time, Oregon wound up second at 139. Michigan third at 143 and Colorado fourth at 186. Next in line: North Carolina State, Princeton, Baylor, Lamar. California and Penn State.
While Rachel Johnson of Baylor was racing to a decisive individual win in 20:21.1,
sensational Princeton sophomore Megan Curham - the former star at New Jersey's Villa Walsh High School - blazed to a brilliant individual second in 20:36.4 and Georgetown senior Katrina Coogan was continuing to impress with a solid 20:37.7 third.
UConn's Laura Sara nabbed an 11th (21:03.6), Princeton's Kathryn Fluehr 21st (21:13.1) and Yale's Kira Garry 24th (21:14.0.)
Keeping the Hoyas rolling were Kelsey Smith in 19th (21:12.8), Madeline Chambers 20th (21:13.0), Andrea Keklak 31st (21:17.9) and Annamarie Maag 37th (21:25.9).
Excellent Hoya insurance was Haley Pierce (38th in 21:26.1.)
Even with Oregon's Edward Cheserek (24:04.5) and Eric Jenkins (24:09.4) running
1-3 in the men's five-miler. the Ducks stood no chance of holding off Pac-10 rival
Colorado.
Sophomore Cheserek, the defending NCAA champion out of St. Benedict's Prep in Newark, was just devastating as usual in extending his unbeaten season, and Jenkins, the redshirt senior transfer from Northeastern, ran big-time, too. But the rest of the Ducks were nowhere close.
It was supposed to be run-off between the nation's No. 1 an No. 2 teams. but simply wasn't.
Colorado, coached by Mark Wetmore (who gained much of his early XC education at
New Jersey's Bernards High School), ran the Ducks into the Terre Haute turf.
Blake Theroux of the Buffs (24:06.1) split the Oregon lead pair in second place and got solid backing from Ben Saarel (fourth in 24:15.3), Ammar Moussa (eighth in 24:21.8) Jake Hurysz (ninth in 24:21.8) and Pierce Murphy (12th in 24:25.6.)
That netted a low-low 35 team points with a 24:18.52 average. Oregon, which waited to 42nd spot to see its fifth man cross the line, was a distant second at 91 with a 24:31.6 average.
Like Oregon, the Colorado team has national roots. Theroux's hometown is
Chesapeake, Va.; Saarel's is Park City, Utah; Moussa's Arcadia, Calif.; Hurysz's Mebane, N.C. and Murphy's Hanalei, Hawaii. The Buffs' 19-man roster lists just five Coloradans.
Of course, all team lineups will be subject to much juggling for the biggest ones just ahead. Delivering cheer for host Indiana State was John Mascari, fifth in 21:16.3. Continuing a big day for Georgetown (which saw its women's team win it all), the Hoyas' men's squad ran third (148 points), with Furman (262) fourth and Colorado State (272) fifth. Further back were Penn State in eighth, Cornell 10th and Yale 15th.
Solid runs were turned in, too, by Lehigh's Ryan Mahalsky (13th in 24:26.3), Georgetown's Ahmed Bile (21st 24:43.2), Yale's Kevin Dooney (27th 24:48.4) and Georgetown's Jonathan Green (28th 24:48.8.)
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