CMC75 Moments: 2016 CMS Men's Cross Country Earns Fifth Place at Nationals
As part of the buildup to the 75th Anniversary celebration for Claremont McKenna College (visit CMC's 75th Anniversary Countdown Page to learn more), we are reliving many of the great moments from CMS athletic department history over the 75-day countdown from April 17 to July 1. If you were a part of this great moment and would like to add to the memories, or if you would like to submit your memories of your own favorite CMS Athletics moments, fill out the form on our main 75th Anniversary page.
Great Moments from 75 Years of Athletics
2016 Men's Cross Country: Stags Finish Fifth at Nationals
The 2016 CMS Men's Cross Country team had a tough battle to win its fifth straight SCIAC title, finishing with 47 points to edge both Pomona-Pitzer (51) and Whittier (52). Joshua Sealand came in second, Thomas D'Anieri fifth and Jesse Joseph tenth to earn first-team All-SCIAC honors, with Nico Banks (14th), Garrett Ryan (16th) and Kyle Lund (19th) on the second team.
All three SCIAC teams qualified for the NCAA Championships, and there the Stags really shined, recording the top finish in program history by coming in fifth place, well ahead of Pomona-Pitzer in 17th and Whittier in 23rd. The big story was Lund, who went from not scoring for CMS in the SCIAC Championship by being sixth on the Stags, to finishing third at the NCAA West Regionals and then eighth in the entire country at nationals (including fifth among runners competing with teams, and not as individuals).
Sealand was close behind him in 13th place (eight points), and Kevin Huang added a 60th place finish (36 points) after coming in ninth at regionals. Joseph added 88 points and D'Anieri 114 to help the Stags end up in fifth place nationally.
The 251 total points left CMS behind only North Central, SUNY Geneseo, Wisconsin-Eau Claire and Washington University on the team leaderboard and helped the Stags break the previous high finish of seventh, which it accomplished the year before. It was also the highest finish for any West Region team since 1981.
Thomas D'Anieri:
This was my freshman year, so most of my memories are of me being a complete idiot. I showed up to campus, crushed Josh and Kyle in the first race of the season, and promptly proceeded to get injured, begin attending weekly TNRs, go skateboarding during our alt days, and spent much of the season on the elliptical. So when I came back for the SCIAC championships, I felt like I owed it to my teammates and myself to run like the big dog I believed I could be.
I saw Kyle and Kevin hurting early on, and knew that my stepping up was not just going to be a point of personal pride, it was going to be a necessity if we wanted to win. And I wasn't going to let my arrival to CMS bring with it our first SCIAC loss in 5 years. My time was super slow, but at Prado it was grit, not speed, that mattered. Three weeks later, the results were quite the opposite. Kyle and Josh's speed on that Kentucky course surpassed everyone's wildest expectations, while I underperformed. The race was a blur, but what sticks out most to me from that day was seeing Josh and Kyle on the podium. Their careers had come to fruition right in front of my eyes, and despite the riveting CMC freshman fall classes, this was really the first time I had felt inspired in college.
The contrast in race performances I think serves as a good representation of the kind of support we had for each other both on and off the course. Athletically, I kicked the guys butts into gear when I won early at Nationball. They pulled me up out of the depths of my injury and back onto the team. I pulled that team along at SCIACs, while Josh and Kyle carried me at nationals. Jesse put my head back square on my shoulders in track, and ultimately I remember sternly directing Kyle to run the damn 5K when he was considering dropping from it at SCIACs in the spring. He subsequently beat me and scored an essential 2 points--we won the title by 1.5.
That pattern held true in our academic and social lives as well. Yes this was one of our best teams ever, I had an amazing freshman year, and this was a particularly special senior class. But it was an absolute rollercoaster psychologically, and a huge adjustment for me in the classroom. Whenever I was down though, this team pulled me right back up. They helped me pass Calc 1, attended monthly club meetings with me, and stayed until 8:30 at Collins breakfast just to get to know me. I returned the favor as best I could, primarily by steering the Mudders' long run conversations to more enlightened subjects such as politics and philosophy, bringing my energy to our social events, and my attachment (literally) to Josh's hip throughout our spring track workouts. I really meant it four years later in my senior speech when I said that my teammates carried me through my freshman year, and that I would not have made it without them. I like to think I made their time in Claremont just a little more fun and a little more meaningful as well.
The last big workout before nationals is literally the hardest I have ever seen someone workout, and it is the image of Kyle Lund that sits in my mind. The workout (at 6 a.m. on a Wednesday morning):
- 3mi warm-up
- Track mile run in 4:45
- Grass mile run in 5:05
- Track mile run in 4:40
- "Beck" 2K run at 4:48 mile pace
- A 4 minute jog between each rep.
Every person on the team fell off the workout or was pulled out by coach at some point before the Beck 2K except for Kyle and Josh. I remember I made it halfway through the second track mile.
So everyone was rested except for Kyle and Josh for this last rep, which was a "Beck" rep, meaning the person at the back of the line sprints to the front continuously throughout. So you spend most of the time running in a line until you are at the back, at which point you sprint to the front, and the process restarts. Goldhammer had me, Kevin, Nico, and Jesse run maybe 2 of the 5 laps, which was all we could handle. The problem is, the less runners there are the shorter the line is, so the more frequently each person has to spend running hard from back to front. With two people left, they had essentially broken the workout. And so for the next four minutes Kyle and Josh took turns sprinting around each other back and forth, while the rest of us watched in awe at the sheer determination and fitness of both of these guys, as well as a bit of concern that Kyle might keel over at any moment. I can still hear whatever sounds Kyle's breathing was making during that last lap--from across the track. To this day, it is the most impressive workout performance I have seen in real life.
2016 Men's Cross Country Roster
Head Coach: John Goldhammer
Assistant Coach: Collin Christensen
Colin Adams (So., HMC)
Danyon Anderson (Jr., CMC)
Nico Banks (Sr., CMC)
Collin Barraugh (Jr., CMC)
Wyatt Cooper (Jr., CMC)
Thomas D'Anieri (Fr., CMC)
Max Denning (Fr., HMC)
Charlie Harris (So., CMC)
Kevin Huang (So., HMC)
Matt Huerta (So., CMC)
Ben Iten (So., HMC)
Wilson Ives (Fr., HMC)
Jesse Joseph (Sr., HMC)
Kyle Lund (Sr., HMC)
Brooks MacDonald (Fr., HMC)
Dan McCabe (Sr., HMC)
Alex Mitchell (Jr., CMC)
Matthew Mulligan (Sr., CMC)
Alexander Novitsky (Fr., CMC)
Hunter Olsen (Jr., CMC)
Matt Psaltakis (So., HMC)
Arch Robison (Jr., HMC)
Brenner Ryan (Fr., HMC)
Garrett Ryan (Jr., CMC)
Adam Schulze (So., HMC)
Joshua Sealand (Sr. HMC)
Kyle Suver (Jr., HMC)