Last Friday, cross country faced a daunting task — one that’s haunted the Red men for over thirty years and the women for six.
The Northeast Regional Championship, or regionals for short.
To qualify for the National Championship race, a team needs to earn either first place or second place in its regional race. Given that the Red was competing against 37 other teams for those two spots, the challenge at hand is quite overwhelming.
In the 10K, their first of the season, the men fell short of their stated goal of qualification to nationals, finishing ninth with 274 points. Runners-up Iona University finished with 95 points. Given that the men placed third last year, only narrowly missing out on qualification to nationals, this performance was disappointing.
“It just wasn’t the day we hoped for,” head coach Mike Henderson said.
Henderson cited unlucky circumstances as the force preventing the men from moving up the standings. Junior Aryan Abbajaru, who earned Second-Team All Ivy at the Ivy League Championships, was kept from finishing the race due to injury.
“[Abbajaru], our second runner, got taken out,” Henderson said. “He got trampled and then the medical car picked him up and drove him [away]. If he finishe[d] where he normally [does], we’re right there for fourth [or] fifth [as opposed to 9th].”
The men suffered a further blow as sophomore Douglas Antaky tried to race while sick, but ultimately his condition got the better of him.
“[Antaky] tried to give it a go [but] he just couldn’t breathe and function,” Henderson said.
Even though the day ended in disappointment for the men, there were positives to look back on: in fact, every Cornell runner that finished the race ended with a personal record. Sophomore Griffin Mandirola built off his Second-Team All Ivy performance last week, again finishing first on the team and 17th overall, with a time of 29:44.
“[Mandirola] ran a great race,” Henderson said. “[He] really, really put together a nice effort there.”
Junior Matthew O’Brien had his best race of the season, finishing second for the Red and crossing the finish line at 30:23, good for 37th overall. Senior Tyler Canaday and sophomore Peyton Shute finished just behind O’Brien. Canaday placed 49th overall, running a 30:31; Shute placed 55th overall, running a 30:35.
Henderson lauded Shute for a great performance in his first-ever 10K race.
“Shute did a really nice job of moving up and closing hard,” Henderson said. “As a sophomore, this was his first cross country 10K. … He handled that pretty well.”
Sophomore Colin Martens was the last Red runner to cross the line, ending in 118th place with a time of 31:26. Martens was not expected to be the fifth scorer for the men, but Abbajaru’s injury and Antaky’s sickness prompted him into action.
“[Martens] did an excellent job,” Henderson said. “Partway through the race, when it became clear that we only had five guys left, we communicated [that] with him and he really responded and kept [himself] focused in battle… he was pressed into service and he responded.”
The Red was far behind Ivy League opponents Harvard and Yale University, but it cast aside Columbia, Dartmouth and Brown, all by wide margins.
As the men regressed, the women improved in the 6K.
The women also finished ninth, with 303 points. Rather than being a cause for disappointment, ninth constitutes their best finish in this race since 2019.
“I think they’ve done a really nice job of just continuing to make incremental steps every year,” Henderson said. “The freshmen really stepped up and helped fill some depth. The sophomores continued to grow. Obviously, Mairead [Clas] has continued… progressing for us.”
As she has done every race except for John Reif Invitational, Clas finished first for the women, ending in 32nd place with a 20:39. She earned this even when trying to make her last race a heroic one.
“[Clas] put herself with that top group [of the race], and it just wasn’t quite her day,” Henderson said. “She really tried to battle and do something big on the day.”
Next in line for the women was sophomore Hannah Kersten, finishing with a 21:02, good for 58th place. She earned a new personal record from her efforts.
“[Kersten] did a really nice job of moving up strong,” Henderson said.
The next three Cornell runners finished within five places of each other. Freshman Evelyn Prodoehl ended the race in 69th place with a 21:11, sophomore Tenley Nelson ended with a 21:12 in 71st and junior Masie McManus ended with a 21:14 in 73rd.
Rounding out the scorers for the women were freshman Kinga Czajkowska and sophomore Bronwyn Parks. Czajkowska finished with a 21:33 and in 100th place. Parks crossed the line just behind her at 21:35, good for 103rd.
Henderson praised the women’s team for a great effort.
“[The women] put seven [runners] in front of our [top four runners] last year,” Henderson said. “[It’s] definitely a big, big move forward.”
Of the seven women who ran for the Red at regionals, only Clas is graduating this year. Thus, Henderson believes that the women have immense potential.
“I think we’ll start seeing big jumps out of them in the next couple of years,” he said. “It’ll be fun to see what they can do with another year of growth.”
For only the second time all season, the women bested Ivy rivals Columbia. They also dispatched Dartmouth and Brown but lost handily to Harvard and Yale.
Henderson applauded the efforts across the season of the two seniors who ran for the Red at regionals, Canaday for the men and Clas for the women.
“[Canaday and Clas] both did an outstanding job,” Henderson said. “[They] really helped that younger group find an identity.”
With the conclusion of the season, the Red naturally looks forward to the next. For the men to improve, Henderson stressed the importance of the little things.
“We had some really bad luck with some tough illnesses, but also, [there were] multiple races where guys got knocked down and trampled,” Henderson said. “That’s something we’ve got to look at and figure out what’s going on.”
For the women, Henderson believes that patience and incremental improvement is key.
“It’s certainly just continuing the journey,” Henderson said. “It’s got to be ‘hey, let’s get into the top half of the [Ivy] League, let’s make that next jump in regionals.’ It’s going to be a lot of watching our sophomore become juniors and establish their role within the team, and seeing the freshmen mature.”
Since both the men and the women failed to qualify to nationals, and since no Red runner qualified as an individual either, this is the last major competition for cross country until 2026.
