Valeri Ends Senior Season at NCAA Championships

Saturday, November 18

Louisville, KY

12 PM

Army West Point

NCAA Championships

Valeri Ends Senior Season at NCAA Championships

November 18, 2017 | Men's Cross Country

LOUISVILLE, KY. – Senior John Valeri of the Army West Point men's cross country team ended his senior season by placing 160th at the NCAA Men's XC Championships.

Coach's Quote:
"Going into this race I told John that we needed to have realistic objectives and focus points," said head coach Mike Smith. "This meet is full of world class talent and if you aren't focused you can easily get chewed up and spit out. We set out to compete against the other service academy runners, the patriot league athletes and shoot for a top half finish. Today John ran to his potential and achieved most but not all of our goals. He was the top patriot league runner today, he beat all of the runners from Navy and he got into the Air Force top five. His 160th place was just a little off of what we thought was possible but a competitive run nonetheless."

"The winner of the meet today was in the final of the world championships 5000m last summer. The guy that finished 224th won the indoor NCAA mile, the outdoor 1500m last year, and competed at the world championships last summer. John kept himself in it today and beat some good people, and in turn some good people beat him.

"In the end he did what he has done all year, he set his mind to compete to the best of his ability and then went out and did it. He closed out his cross country career with a good competitive run. It was a great year for him and a great year for our program. John represents the tip of the spear for us and I expect us to have more athletes at this meet in the future."

Player's Quote:
"Being the only one on the team there today, I really wanted to represent the entire team, the Academy, and my coaches," said Valeri. "The plan beforehand was to get out in front and compete today, beat as many service-academy racers as I could, and to try to project myself in the top half of the race."

"I was very happy with my performance. I was very fortunate to be in a race with so much talent. This was the best race in that nations today and it was exciting to be a part of that. It was pretty rewarding knowing I could end my senior season on top. For this to be my last race kind of shows that all the hard work and the long mileage from the past four years has really paid off."

ARMY HIGHLIGHTS AND GAME NOTES

Valeri finished in 160th out of 253 competitors, clocking a time of 31:14.13.
This was Army's third highest placement for an individual performer in this meet.
Scott Goff placed 23rd in 1998, while Mike Bernstein placed 42nd in 1994. Jon Mickowski placed 207th in this meet in 2007.
This was Army's first appearance in the NCAA Championship in over a decade.
Valeri ran a solid race, hitting the first 2k in the middle of the pack at 113th, with a time of 5:53.3.
He dropped pace over the next 2k falling to 180th, but was able to push forward down the stretch to the 166th spot by the 8k mark.
Valeri posted the highest finish over all other Patriot League representatives, including Navy who qualified as a team.
Valeri has had an impressive senior season, finishing as the overall champion at the annual Army-Navy star meet, becoming the first Army runner to take the top overall spot in the race since 2013.
He has also led Black Knights in the rest of their meets for the season, consistently finishing in the top two for the squad.