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with Caleb McGaughran, GoMessiah.com reporter
Dallas, PA - The Messiah Falcons had a successful day today at the Middle Atlantic Conference Cross Country (MAC) Championship race, hosted by Misericordia University. Freshman
Jared Schatz took home the Rookie of the Year award, while the men's and women's teams finished fourth and third, respectively.
Elizabethtown College took first place for both the women and men. It was their fourth straight championship on the women's side; it was their sixth on the men's side.
Along with freshman
John Ausel, Schatz led the race for the team, finishing ninth overall at 27:11.12. Ausel finished in thirteenth, making the second all-conference team with a time of 27:18.34.
“I am very pleased with Ausel's performance,” Messiah's head coach
Dale Fogelsanger said. “He has consistently been our number one or two runner throughout the season. I was excited that he could set a personal record in conference meet, along with
Jared Schatz who was named the best rookie.”
In addition to Schatz and Ausel, several of the other athletes on the men's team set personal records. Freshmen
Christopher Scheib and
Nathan Fleming both scored for the team, placing fourth and seventh for the team with personal bests of 27:58.45 and 29:19.19. Freshman
Alex Faus and sophomore JonPhillip McGill also set personal records (29:29.35 and 29:54.67 respectively).
Of the men's team performance today, Fogelsanger said that it would be a “tight top half finish” for Messiah among the conference teams.
“With the real young team we have, I'm satisfied with fourth place,” he said.
As for the women's team, Fogelsanger said that it was interesting to see where each athlete placed today.
“Our top seven runners shuffled their order of finish today,” said Fogelsanger. “This demonstrates the strong depth of our team.”
Freshman
Tasha Becker and sophomore
Rebecca Ports both had great races today. Fogelsanger said that the two of them moved up in placing on the team and helped strengthen it today Becker and Ports were Messiah's number two and three runners at the conference, following junior
Jessica Visneski who placed first for the team. Becker also set a personal record for herself of 25:00.97
In addition, Visneski and Becker made the first all-conference team, placing ninth and tenth respectively in the meet. Fogelsanger said that he was encouraged that Visneski could be among the top ten in conference and he enjoyed seeing her perform at that level. Fogelsanger said he had encouraged Visneski to aim for placing in the top ten at the conference meet and he is pleased that she achieved that goal.
In other news for the women, senior
Brenda Flaherty also set a personal record for herself of 26:05.78. Flaherty had transferred to Messiah a year ago, but was unable to participate in any races for the 2011 season due to an injury. Her current cross country season is her first at Messiah and today's race is just one demonstration of the many ways she has contributed to this year's team.
As the Falcons come off of this year's conference championship, they are already looking ahead towards next year's meet.
“I'm excited about the prospect of an exceptionally good team for next year,” said Fogelsanger. “We will only be graduating one male and one female from the top seven runners, so there's good potential for success.”
Two weeks from today, Messiah will be sending their top seven men and women to the NCAA Regional Championship, hosted by Dickinson College at Big Spring High School.
