Men's Cross Country Places Second at Iona Meet of Champions Behind Gough

Friday, September 16

Van Cortlandt Park / Riverdale, NY

10:00 AM

Army West Point

Iona Meet of Champions

Men's Cross Country Places Second at Iona Meet of Champions Behind Gough

September 16, 2022 | Men's Cross Country

Meet 2
PLACEMENT	2nd out of 9 teams
DISTANCE	8k
LOCATION	Van Cortlandt Park - Riverdale, NY

RIVERDALE, N.Y. - Army West Point men's cross country had a strong showing at the Iona Meet of Champions at Van Cortlandt Park, finishing in second place among the nine teams competing. The Black Knights were led by Garrett Gough, who tabbed his first collegiate first-place finish.

Gough posted a time of 24:44 in the 8k (5 mile) race, leading the pack and leaving 15 seconds between him and second place. Isaac Morris had a strong showing for the Black Knights, coming in eighth place overall and outpacing the leader from every program besides Iona and Binghamton.

Coming off his Patriot League Runner of the Week performance two weeks ago, Erick Lara continued his fine start to the season with a 13th-place shoiwng, while Luke Lusskin posted a 10th-place finish after leading Army runners versus Maine. The final scores tallied for Army included Marc Baroncini (17th, 26:21.8) and Anthony Diaz (21st, 26:29.5), helping the Black Knights to a second-place finish.

A full list of results for the meet can be found HERE.

Coach's Corner
"Van Cortlandt Park has been the site of countless cross country championship races over the past 100+ years. For our teams today, the Iona Meet of Champions was a chance to compete against some good teams but also to measure ourselves against the history books. We put together a strong but not complete lineup today and I thought that we had a good chance to be competitive at the front of the race. Iona is a perennial NCAA cross country power and although they were without a few key guys today they were still a strong team. We had our chances in the race to come out on top, but we gave up too many points at the end of the race to pull off the win. The things that we did well will keep us in the bigger races that are coming. Garrett Gough emerged today as a dominant front runner. That was his first collegiate win and he looked good throughout. He managed the effort of the race and was very controlled and methodical in his approach. I have a historical record of top Army times at the Van Cortlandt Park traditional course going back to 1951. Garrett's time of 24:44 today ranks number 5 all time on this course and every one of the times ahead of him came from Army men competing at the heptagonal championships late in the season. It was a great first race for him. Behind Garrett, we were once again relying on some of our older but less experienced guys. Isaac Morris had a nice debut performance today running as our number 2. He did a nice job this summer of putting in the work and it showed today. He got stuck running alone for a majority of the race but did a nice job of distributing his effort and holding on for a top-10 finish. Our other guys put together strong efforts and did a nice job of executing to include the plebe men who showed some consistency relative to their performance up in Maine. We made some progress today and although I would like to have won the meet, we demonstrated some of the toughness that I expect will serve us well in the future." - Mike Smith

Up Next
Army will compete in the Paul Short Invitational, hosted by Lehigh University on Friday, September 30th in Bethlehem, PA.

For complete coverage of Army West Point cross country and track and field, follow the Black Knights on Twitter (ArmyWP_TrackXC) and Instagram (goarmytrack) and online at www.goarmywestpoint.com.