MEN’S CROSS-COUNTRY

Consistent performances by the team last season led to six top-10 finishes in nine meets. Ithaca finished 9th at the state championship and 11th at the NCAA regional qualifier. With more than a dozen freshmen and four returning runners on this year’s roster, the Bombers will look to continue that pattern of solid performances.

Ithaca’s top returning runners are juniors Khawaja Hameed and Michael Fitzpatrick. Hameed was in the Bombers’ top seven last season. Fitzpatrick, a top-seven runner in 1997, is returning after a year’s hiatus. Sophomores James Donegan and Adam Wille turned in consistent times last season. Coming over from the Ithaca track and field team are sophomore Michael McNamara and junior Nick Ryan.

Ithaca opens the schedule on September 11, at the Pat Peterson Invitational at Oswego. The Bombers also will run at Cortland, Syracuse, Dickinson, Roberts Wesleyan, Cornell, Rensselaer, and Penn State. Regular-season invitationals hosted by Geneseo and Oswego will give the team a chance to compete at the sites of this year’s postseason races. The NYSCTC meet will be held at Oswego, the NCAA New York region qualifier at Geneseo, and the NCAA championship at Wisconsin–Oshkosh.