Harriers take 4th straight at MACs

By Jarrad Hedes

Same old story, just a different year. The Elizabethtown men’s cross country team provided no suprises to those in attendance at the 2002 Middle Atlantic Conference Cross Country Championships held at Lancaster County Central Park on Saturday afternoon. The team won its fourth MAC title in as many years.

Meanwhile, the Moravian women won for an amazing tenth straight year. The Lady Jays finished fourth of the 13 teams in the race.

The men’s team crusied to their victory, as they tallied only 21 points in the race. This point total was a program record low score for the MAC Championships. In second place, were the Widener Pioneers with 70 points. Messiah was third with 117 points.

"It feels good to win the MAC championship for the 4th year in a row. Not everyone can graduate knowing that their team never lost a conference championship while they were there, and now thats something that Mike, Dave, Keith and I can take with us when we leave," said senior Dustin Scott.

With the victory, this is the first cross country team in Elizabethtown’s history to win the MAC title four years in a row. They are only the second team in Etown’s history to do this. The other program to reach this feat was the Men’s Soccer team, who won six titles in a row from 1962-1967.

The individual championship went to Etown’s Scott, who won with a time of 26:23 over the 8k course. A total of 121 runners competed in the race. This was the first time in Scott’s career that he captured the MAC Individual title. Second and third place also went to the Blue Jays, as Matt Rockwell and Steve Sanko, both sophomores, finished in 26:32 and 26:40 respectively. The 2001 MAC Individual Champion, Dave Berdan, placed sixth with a time of 27 minutes.

"I was glad to have won the individual title. With Dave having won it last year, that gives us the individual championship 2 years in a row. I think the best part about finshing first was turning around after crossing the line and seeing 8 of my teammates in the top 20," said Scott.

By finishing in the top ten, freshman Greg Wetzel and junior Sean Mulcahy earned first team all-MAC honors. Wetzel finished ninth with a time of 27:21, and Mulcahy placed 10th in 27:26. The 11th through 20th finishers got second team all-MAC honors. Senior Mike Zwatty finished 12th in a time of 27:28, while sophomore Nate Moore placed 20th in a time of 28:03.

43 points was what it took for the Greyhounds of Moravian to capture their tenth consecutive women’s team title. Messiah was a close second with 47 points. Desales and Etown were third and fourth with 89 and 124 points respectively. The Lady Jays showed improvement from last year as they moved from sixth to fourth. This was the Jays best effort in the women’s race since 1995. The team finished third in that race. The individual championship was claimed by Gina Lucrezi of DeSales.

Bri Lambert finished in 24:07 to finish first for Etown on the 6k course. She finished 13th in a race that featured 116 participants. She earned second team all-MAC honors by placing in the top 20. She is the first all-conference runner since 1999.

Finishing in 24th place was sophomore Melissa St. Clair, who had a time of 24:45. Lindsey Gruenewald and Amanda Santore also placed in the top 30 with times of 24:52 and 25:00. Gruenewald wound up in 26th, while Santore finished 30th.

Etown gets back in action tomorrow at the NCAA Mideast Regional Championships. They will be hosted by Salisbury University in Maryland. The men’s team will be setting their sights on the program’s first ever Mideast Region championship. They will also be trying to qualify for the NCAA Division III Championships next Saturday, for the third time in the past four years.

The women’s team looks for its best-ever regional finish in the program’s history. Last season, the women placed 14th in the Mideast Regional race. Their best finish came in 1993, when the team finished 12th.