Huskies Make Season Debut at FSU Race

FINAL RESULTS

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The UConn men's cross country team ran their first race since November 2019 on Friday, finishing 12^th at the FSU Winter XC Classic at Florida State.  The field of teams included seven nationally ranked programs as the Huskies got their first look at this year's squad a month ahead of the Big East Championship race.

"Obviously this was a really good field today," stated director of cross country and track & field Greg Roy. "I am really happy we got to run this race today.  Rather than being conservative or not sure what to do today, we came out flying and I was impressed.  It's always easy to pull the guys back than it is to try and get them going."

The Huskies finished the 8K race 12^th in the field of 20 teams with 318 points.  Stanford, the 12^th ranked team in the country won the event held at Apalachee Regional Park.  UConn's top-five runners finished between the 48^th and 81^st spots in the field. 

UConn got out to a fast start and were led by senior Eric Van Der Els (Norwalk, Conn.) who paced the UConn contingent.  He finished the day in 48^th place posting a time of 24:25.8.  He was followed by senior James Maniscalco (Fairfield, Conn.) and junior Will Brisman (Fairfield, Conn.) rounding out a top-three the Huskies have grown accustomed to the past two seasons.

Maniscalco finished in 57^th position coming across the line in a time of 24:32.5.  Brisman was 68^th overall, clocking in at 24:47.3.  Sophomore Kevin Cawley (St. James, N.Y.) was 76^th overall at 24:53.2 and senior Sean Parker (Bridgewater, Conn.) rounded out the UConn top-five in 81^st at 25:02.

"Our guys came down here and we didn't talk a lot about race strategy," commented Roy.  "We came a long way to run a race, so we tried to make it simple and 800 meters in we were 3-across in the top-5.  We were flying and at the 2K mark we were fourth but over the next 1,000 we slid back to 11^th.  We just hit that spot on the course where it hit us hard and we got put back on our heels a bit."

"I thought we held together pretty well 1 to 5," said Roy.  "I think our guys were a little disappointed but I wasn't.  We went out harder than anybody in this race.  We were aggressive and paid for it a bit.  It was kind of like a basketball team that hits a ton of threes in the first half then cools off in the second.  Overall, all though, we will find a lot of positives from today."

The Huskies are hoping to get another race in if possible before taking part in the Big East Championship which is scheduled for Friday, March 5^th in Gary, North Carolina.