Volume CXXXIII, Number 5 October 12, 2001 f

Men's cross country takes state championships
ALEX MOORE
STAFF WRITER

Byron Boots '03 finishes a race. (Karsten Moran, Bowdoin Orient)

The Bowdoin Men's Cross Country Team won in convincing fashion on their home course last Saturday, finishing first in the Maine State Championship for the second straight year. The team tallied an impressive 28 points, while second-place Colby, third-place Bates, and fourth-place University of Southern Maine scored 54, 64, and 121 points, respectively.

As the gun sounded and the runners took off, the skies opened and rain began to pour down. Although the shower was brief, the soggy conditions made for a sloppy and exciting race.

Captain Todd Forsgren '03 described the challenging conditions. "As the rain came down in buckets, I couldn't see a thing, and my hair was covering my eyes too," he said. "I can run our home course in my sleep, so I just kept going, and when the rain stopped, I was in third place."

Captain Steve Allison '01 finished first overall with a time of 25:22. Forsgren finished third, followed by a sixth-place Pat Vardaro '03, eighth-place Scott Herrick '04, and tenth-place Ben Peisch '05. Bowdoin's sixth and seventh finishers, Alex Moore '03 and Clint Huston '02, finished 18th and 19th, respectively.

Captain Rich Sherman '02, Taylor Washburn '04, Pat Hughes '05, Ryan Gillia '04, Jason Colombino '02, Kevin Doyle '04, and Peter Durning '05 rounded out Bowdoin's top fourteen runners.

UM-Farmington, Presque Isle, St. Joseph's, University of New England, Unity, Maine Maritime, and Machias were the other participating Maine schools.
"Maine is known as a good state for cross-country, so it was a very good victory for the team," head coach Peter Slovenski said. "Colby, Bates, and Southern Maine are good teams, and it's a great honor to be state champions this year."

The latest NCAA DIII poll ranks the Bowdoin Men's Cross-Country Team eighth in the country. The men's team looks to be even stronger than that ranking, for Coach Slovenski has not raced several of his top runners over the past two weeks in order to save them for the end of the season.

"Going in, we knew that we would win the state meet," Allison said. "But the way we won, sitting top runners and dominating from start to finish, displays how deep and tough we really are."

The state victory followed a sound beating of the Wesleyan team, which took place on September 29 at Pickard Field. Barbuto '03 won the race, picking up the pace significantly in the final miles and ditching the second place Wesleyan runner.

Conor O'Brien '03 finished third, only seven seconds behind Barbuto. Peisch and Moore finished fourth and fifth for the Polar Bears. After the race, Barbuto said that he was pleased with the results. "I'm happy that I won the race, but am even happier with the solid effort the team made," he said. "I am especially impressed with the first years on the team, who easily adjusted to the longer and more pressured-filled college race."

"Scott Barbuto has been running at an all-star level this season," Slovenski said. "It was great to see him running so fast and easy in front of the race."

The Bowdoin men compete today in Open New Englands at Franklin Park in Boston. Coach Slovenski described the race beforehand, saying that it is "a great place to test ourselves against Division I scholarship runners and Division III All-Americans. It's a fast course, and the level of competition is very high."
"This will be a good test of how well the team will function on a national level," Allison said. "It is a tough race that mirrors nationals, so we have to go out, fight for position, and hang on to the runners in front of us until we feel ready to drop."

"It's our first look at a lot of the teams we'll be competing against in the championship races: Tufts, Trinity, Williams, and Keene State," Sherman added. "I suppose we'll also see if MIT has constructed any fast new robots."