It’s early in the season, but we’ll get better!
This is the situation with the Monroe College cross country team when they made a trip to Greenvale, Long Island to compete in the third annual CW Post Invitational comprised of 12 scoring colleges. Overall, the meet attracted 122 athletes, including those from the University of the District of Columbia and the University of Bridgeport.
As a team, Monroe with campuses located both in the Bronx and New Rochelle, wound up with 295 points, for 11th place. Monroe’s highest scorers were Teodulo Celaya whose 29:24.65 was good for 46th place in scoring and 53 overall over an 8K course. Celaya is a steeplechaser during the spring or outdoor track and field seasons.
Keyvin Adams, the second Monroe scorer was clocked in 29:38.36 for overall 58th place, 50th for scoring purposes, followed by Edouard Christopher (30:56.86, 78, 58), Shamel Williams (34:40.74, 112, 70), John Peterson (34:45.14. 113, 113, 71), and Issac Denzel (38:41.74, 122, 77).
Monroe’s campus lacks a track and field facility on campus. The team members must travel to a short distance from their New Rochelle location to work out.
Mark Goodman is in his third year as Monroe’s head coach. The athletes keep getting better and stronger as the season progresses and have improved over last year. They work very hard.
Monroe used to compete in Division III of the NCAA but currently is competing in the National Junior College Athletic Association. Last year Monroe with a two-year athletic program moved up to Division I of the NJCAA from Division III two years ago. Monroe is actually a four-year private college but the athletic program is two years.
“The athletes come from all different places,” said Goodman. “We have some international athletes who did not compete (in the recent meet.”)
And one, coach Shirvon Greene is from the island of Nevis in the Caribbean, where he grew up. Greene, who attended Monroe College as a student, has particularly one function-that is, to train the runners on the cross country team. Greene is at his position for two years and is the head cross country coach. He works with the 400-meter runners and over.
Greene, who ran in Nevis, and is active in this sport competes for the Central Park Track Club in competitive races, has been impressed with the young men on the college team. His specialty is the 400 meters and above.
“Most of the runners have never did cross country before,” Greene said, after the CW Post Meet was completed. “Their primary seasons were indoor and outdoors. However, for the main prospective they did very well (at the Post meet) in terms of their expectations)I (instituted in them)… In the future we are trying to develop more cross country runners. We had a good start to our season.”
Overall, in the meet, Fordham with 32 points, and with all five scorers going 1-15, led by Kevin Harvey’s 26:33.33 for third place, won the team title. Post, the host school, finished with a team 77 points, led by Christian Alatamura’s 26:51.91 for eighth place.
Nick Fillipazzo’s 26:11.81 captured the individual men’s crown in the Post Invitational.
“Winning the (individual) race felt good,” Fillipazzo a sophomore at Molloy College of Rockville Center, said. “I felt strong. This is my first victory in a college uniform.”
