BRONX, NY--NJIT sophomore Christian Baumbach added the most prestigious cross country crown in school history, winning the season-ending University 8-kilometer race at the 101st annual IC4A Cross Country Championships held at Van Cortlandt Park Saturday. Baumbach's win paced the Highlanders to the highest IC4A race team finish in program history—11th.
Baumbach, who three weekends earlier won the Great West Conference championship race on the same course, covered the IC4A event in 25:36.8, 6.3 seconds ahead of the next runner, Eddie Penatar of Temple.
The Van Cortlandt Park course is longer this year following a renovation and reconfiguration, but Baumbach, who ran last year's IC4A race in 27:09, shaved 1:33 off that time despite having to run farther. His time in winning the Great West Conference crown on October 31 was 25:57.95.
NJIT senior Umar Saeed, who had placed second in the 2008 running of the IC4A race, finished 10th on Saturday at 26:09.8. Saeed had a terrific career in the IC4As, placing 24th as a freshman in 2006, 14th in 2006, and then second in 2008 after redshirting in 2007.
Freshman Brian Mendez finished 37th on Saturday, posting a time of 26:51.6, to round out NJIT's top 40 finishers.
Rounding out the scoring runners for the Highlanders were: sophomore Dan Sapienza (28.25.9) ran 122nd and received points for 112; sophomore Joe Ju (28:44.1) ran 134th and scored 122; and, freshman Benny Singleton (28:46.0) ran 135th and scored 123.
Also finishing for NJIT were: freshman Hilton Gooding (29:17.1); freshman Miguel Tlatelpa(29:40.2); and, sophomore Doug Colaizzo (29:48.7).
NJIT, which finished 21st in the same race in 2008, moved up to an all-time program-best 11th in 2009 and every Highlander finish except for Saeed was either a sophomore or a freshman.
In finishing 11th, NJIT, which has been competing in Division I for four years and is in its first year as a championship-eligible program this season, finished ahead of such long-established Division I programs as event host Fordham, Manhattan, Fairfield, Sacred Heart, Loyola, Monmouth, Holy Cross, Hofstra, Siena, St. Francis (NY), and Seton Hall. In all, 24 full teams were in the IC4A “University Event”, with teams coming mostly from Division I, but two Division II teams, as well.
NJIT head coach Al Alonso, who has built the NJIT program from scratch, was elated with his team's showing. He said: “The course at Van Cortlandt Park is longer this year than in the past, but we've raced on the new course three times and just about everyone ran his personal best time. It was a great showing and a lot of people were talking about NJIT.”
There are three IC4A season-ending races conducted on the same day each year, the “Championship Event”, “University Event”, and “Coaches Event”.
The “Championship Event” team winner for a second consecutive year was Duke, with Everett Hackett of George Mason winning the race. As noted, Temple was the team winner the “University Event” and NJIT's Baumbach won the race. And the “Coaches Event” was won by Mark Del Monaco of La Salle, with no team standings.
