It was going to be a year of change for the Fordham Prep cross country and track-and-field program. Gone was the Class of 2009, arguably the greatest class to ever wear a Prep uniform. The accomplishments spoke for themselves. Three CHSAA and NYCHSAA track-and-field championships. A national championship in the Shuttle Hurdle Relay. The top ranking in New York State for the 2008-09 indoor track-and-field season. A victory in the Millrose Games against chief archrival Monsignor Farrell, the Prep’s fifth victory in eighth years and ending a two-year drought.
But now, it was time for the Class of 2010 to step up and fill the (massive) shoes of the stars that had graduated a little over three months before. Understandably, a year after losing five out of the seven scorers from a 10th-place team at Cities (although the 2008 varsity squad simply had a bad race at the worst possible time, as they were predicted to finish fourth and make the State meet), expectations were low. Pundits questioned whether the Prep had enough depth to help Tom Jennings and Eric Engelbrecht, the only two holdovers from the 2008 varsity squad. Kellenberg coach Kevin Buckley, in his pre-season poll, picked the Prep 8th, saying, “Aided by tradition and numbers; Coach Febles has a tough job in front of him.” Here were the rest of the Buckley Pre-Season Rankings:
Buckley
Pre-Season Rankings
1. Chaminade
2. St. Anthony’s
3. Farrell
4. Regis
5. St. Peter’s
6. Iona Prep
7. St. Joe’s Sea
8. Fordham Prep
9. St. John the Baptist
10. Xavier
11. Kellenberg
Indeed, it was up to Coach George Febles Jr. to fill the other five Varsity slots, and he had plenty of experienced options to look to, including seniors James Gallo, Ryan Fink, and Steve Pisciotta, who were the top three JV finishers at the 2008 City Champs. The buzz around the team and the coaching staff was that come Saturday, November 14, the date of Cities, the Prep would have enough to place in the top five and qualify for the State meet.
So with Jennings, Engelbrecht, Gallo, Fink, and Pisciotta, the Prep had a solid core of five to work with as the Prep opened up their preseason on Monday, August 31. The two varsity slots to fill would be decided at the Jesuit Time Trial on Friday, September 4, as the Prep ran against Xavier and Regis in a friendly meet to see who was ready for the long season to follow. Running without Jennings, Engelbrecht and Fink finished 1-2 for the Prep, as expected, but the Prep saw a pleasant surprise in the form of two sophomores stepping up to finish third and fourth---Pat Dillon and Sean Donohue.
For the third year in a row, the Prep traveled to the Red Raider Invitational in Stony Point, New York for the Red Raider Run on Friday, September 18. They went to war for the “initial” race of the season, a 5K, with a lineup of Jennings, Gallo, Fink, Dillon, Donohue, Pisciotta, and senior Cole MacKenzie, running in place of Engelbrecht, who was sick and could not run. True to form of “low-keying” it at the early-season meets, the Prep came in 6th in a field of 14 teams with 162 points and a 19:07.79 average. There was a noticeably large time gap between Jennings and Fink, the first two finishers for the Prep, and again from Fink to Dillon, the third man on the day.
The Prep continued to bide their time the week of September 21, losing to Regis at the Jim Scott 2 Mile Challenge, 33-35---Regis’ first victory since 2002, the last time the Prep lost the meet---despite a tactically masterful race from Jennings, who posted excellent negative splits of 5:20 and 5:01 en route to a 10:21.42 win over the favorite from Regis, Myles Phillips.
The Prep once again boarded the yellow school buses for a trek north, this time to the JFK Sterling Invitational in Somers, New York on Saturday, September 26. Racing in a small Varsity field of six teams in another 5K, with this course being relatively flat compared to the Red Rader Run course. In the race, the Prep finished 4th with 92 points and a 17:16 average, taking some baby steps towards exceeding the low expectations set for them.
With September in the books, and only one more course that was longer than 2.5 miles to go as the action shifted from the early-season invitationals to the championship meets to come in the month-plus ahead, the Prep was ranked 10th by Buckley, as he had placed St. John the Baptist and his own team, Kellenberg, ahead of the Prep. Here was the poll through September:
Buckley
Rankings (Sunday, September 27)
1. St. Anthony’s
2. Chaminade
3. Farrell
4. St. Joe’s Sea
5. Regis
6. St. Peter’s
7. St. John the Baptist
8. Kellenberg
9. Iona Prep
10. Fordham Prep
11. Xavier
12. Molloy
The annual trip to the McQuaid Invitational in Rochester, New York was next, and
the Prep continued the slow climb, with faster times and a smaller compression
over the three-mile, mostly flat course, as only 38 seconds separated the top
five. The 413 points and 17:06.86 average placed the Prep 18th out of
21 teams in the toughest race of the day.
The next two meets the Prep was looking to were the Bronx Championships on Wednesday, October 14 and the DeWitt Clinton Invitational on Saturday, October 17. The team---along with other fellow CHSAA teams---would be skipping the Manhattan College Invitational. In his poll released on Columbus Day weekend, Buckley, still keeping the Prep in 10th, said that the Prep “was waiting for Groundhog Day,” a playful dig at Coach Febles’ philosophy of “low-keying” the early-season invitationals and a not-so-subtle dig that the Prep had not shown the CHSAA much so far.
The Prep made Buckley eat his words by winning yet another Bronx championship, handily defeating Mount St. Michael, 20-53, and recording a 14:30.25 average in the process. It was a notice to the rest of the CHSAA: we may have been down early, but we typically bloom late, and this year is no exception despite the new faces.
The Groundhog Day comment, made tongue-in-cheek, looked even worse at the DeWitt Clinton Invitational, as Jennings busted loose, tearing up the back hills of Van Cortlandt for a 13:34.4 clocking. Fink dropped his time for the season down to 14:01.1, a season-best, while Gallo, who was rounding back into shape during the long-course races, hit a 14:10.1 personal best. Engelbrecht’s 14:23.9 gave the Prep four under 14:25, but there were some minor fifth-man woes, as the two Pisciottas (Matt had supplanted an injured MacKenzie in the varsity lineup at this point, and Donohue was also suffering from an injury that sidelined him at Soph Sectionals) and Dillon were at 14:49.7 (Matt), 14:50.5 (Steve), and 15:13.3 (although Dillon simply had a bad race), as the Prep took 4th place out of 23 teams. Could the Prep get that elusive fifth man in time for the championship meets?
Buckley gave somewhat of a mea culpa following that week’s race, bumping the Prep up to 7th and saying, “starting to wake up; Bronx Champs winner; 4th at Clinton.” Indeed, the Prep was wide-awake and ready to make the final push for the State meet.
Only two weeks remained until championship season began, and the Prep put in another two weeks’ hard work, taking off from racing the weekend of Saturday, October 24. Halloween afternoon, October 31, was the first of the two major varsity championships, the NYCHSAA Championship, comprising teams from Westchester, the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island.
It was a warm, muggy day, with temperatures around 70 degrees and humidity levels around 75%---weather conditions more appropriate for late August than the last day of October. The tough conditions slowed the entire field---after the individual champion, Dan Zaccariello from St. Joe’s Sea, clocked a fast 13:09.07, the second-place finisher, Nasser Zayer from St. Peter’s, ran a 13:39.34, more than a 30-second difference.
For the second season in a row, the Prep suffered a bad race at a championship meet, but if there was a “right” championship meet to falter at, it was the Sectionals and not the Cities. Jennings’ 14:14.46 was 40 seconds slower than his personal best at the DeWitt Clinton Invitational, and it would not get much better from there---the only Varsity runner to record a personal best, including junior Cruz Orozco, subbing for a mononucleosis-stricken Engelbrecht, was Dillon, and he only recorded a one-second personal best at that. The Prep’s 95 points and 14:30.39 average placed them 5th, behind two teams that they were ranked ahead of in the latest Buckley poll, Regis and St. Peter’s, who got 3rd and 4th respectively.
It was simply a meet that a States-hopeful team had to shake off, and Coach Febles reminded them at practice on Monday, November 2 that no team ran particularly well due to the sticky conditions---as the Sectional champion Monsignor Farrell’s team average was a relatively pedestrian 14:08.13. With the Sectionals disappointment in the rearview mirror, the Prep put all of their energy and focus into Cities, which was only 12 days away.
From the beginning of the season, the team and coaching staff seemed to agree that after the two “monster” teams from Long Island, Chaminade and St. Anthony’s---which had spent the entire season trading the #1 position in the Buckley poll---it was a wide-open race at Cities, with Monsignor Farrell the favorite for 3rd---Buckley ranked them 3rd every poll for the entire season---and 4th and 5th place, the last two places that a team could record to qualify for States, a toss-up.
The entire season, Buckley had been giving the Prep the Rodney Dangerfield treatment, as during the season, he ranked them as follows: 8th (pre-season), 8th, 10th, 10th, 10th, 10th, 7th, and 9th, for an average ranking of 9.25 (74 “places” divided by eight polls). That average dropped down to 9 following a 7th-place ranking in Buckley’s Cities prediction poll, where, by using times and speed ratings from various websites, he attempted to score Cities. Here was the Cities prediction poll:
Buckley’s
Cities Prediction Poll
1. Chaminade (41
points) (1-2 “odds”)
2. St. Anthony’s (49) (3-1)
3. Farrell (104) (20-1)
4. St. Joe’s Sea (152)
5. St. John the Baptist (175)
6. Kellenberg (177)
7. Fordham Prep (222)
8. Regis (236)
9. Iona Prep (265)
10. St. Peter’s (276)
The poll came with its usual caveats. In the poll, Buckley things like, “With [Kenneth] Walshak, St. Anthony’s can get two in before Chaminade,” “St. Joe’s Sea was less than scintillating less than two ‘weaks’ ago, but Coach Chris [Mancusi] feels they’re ready,” “Regis can be trouble for teams #4 through #7 on best effort,” “Iona Prep definitely better than their Westchester [County Champs] showing,” and “Things have not panned out well for the [St. Peter’s] Eagles this season, but they get a last chance.”
Buckley was very confident in his own team’s ability, saying, “Kellenberg is the freshest team in the race, and good at 2.5 miles; see you at Bowdoin Park,” all but guaranteeing a state berth for his team. About the Prep, he said what the team and coaching staff still believed despite the Sectionals fiasco and less-than-impressive showings---“Always dangerous at this meet; throw out bad Sectional; Rams could sneak out a 5th.”
But now, it was time for all of the pre-season and in-season conjecture to be thrown out the window; for finally, there would be a race that brought the entire CHSAA together to show, once and for all, who was the best, and who was good enough to represent the league at States.
Saturday, November 14 dawned a rainy, chilly morning, with temperatures hovering around 55 degrees, high humidity, and crisp breezes. It was a repeat from last season’s Cities weather conditions, and if one believed in omens, the Prep was doomed, for they had finished in 10th place in 2008 under the same weather conditions. But this was a new season, and the Prep was not burdened with expectations; indeed, they were running with nothing to lose, having not been considered a threat to make States all season, and picked to finish 7th at this meet, short of qualifying.
The gun went up at 1:35 P.M., and it was time for an entire summer’s training and an entire season’s training and races, some five months of training and two months of races, to be compressed into a race that would hopefully last, for the State qualifiers, around 13 or 14 minutes.
Kenneth Walshak of St. Anthony’s was the 2009 CHSAA Champion in a scintillating time of 12:55.91, winning by nearly 13 seconds over the runner-up, Patrick Murphy, also from St. Anthony’s. In a season where Chaminade and St. Anthony’s had spent the entire season trading the #1 and #2 position in Buckley’s poll, it was an unexpected strength---St. Anthony’s back-end scorers, which had plagued them all season long---that gave the Friars a tense 37-39 victory over the Flyers, breaking Chaminade’s three-year winning streak. St. Anthony’s posted a 13:19.64 average, while Chaminade clocked a 13:23.31 average. The race was so close that had Murphy and Chaminade’s first finisher, William Slattery, traded places, the teams would have tied at 38, and the Flyers held a sixth-man tiebreaker!
But, there was still the rest of the race and State berths to be decided, and on first glimpse, Fordham Prep would not be taking the trip up to Wappingers Falls (the site of the States meet)---for Gallo, Fink, and Dillon were the Prep’s top three finishers. The question on the minds of the Prep faithful was, “Where was Jennings?” The question was answered as Jennings finished fourth for the Prep, running 14:23.45, and Engelbrecht finished fifth. Things looked gloomy for the Prep---their first runner had finished fourth for them.
The barcodes of the finishers were scanned into the computers, and the results were printed out. Against all odds, the news was soon made official: Fordham Prep had finished 5th with 194 points!
Here’s how it was possible: Gallo had saved his best for last, smashing the 14-minute barrier with a stellar, all-City, 21-second personal best, to the tune of 13:47.49. In fact, had the Prep not qualified for States as a team, Gallo would have, two years after not even being able to break 16 minutes, as a sophomore. Fink had also picked the right time to crack the 14-minute barrier by running 13:58.41, as his ultimately futile attempts as a junior would not go unfulfilled in his (nobody knew it at the time) Van Cortlandt swan song. Dillon also stepped up big, narrowly missing cracking the All-Time list (one had to run below 14:20 to make the list) with a nonetheless stellar 14:20.98.
The huge, clutch efforts of those three were more than able to compensate for Jennings’ second consecutive subpar race, and the effort of Engelbrecht, who recovered rapidly from his bout of mononucleosis to be the fifth man, despite missing his personal best by about six seconds, as he ran 14:29.63. Not scoring but not forgotten were the Pisciotta twins, as Matt finished sixth for the Prep with a 14:37.59 clocking, and Steve finished seventh for the Prep with a 14:42.39 average.
Despite their best man finishing fourth, the Prep only finished 33 points behind the third-place team, Monsignor Farrell, and only 12 points behind the fourth-place team, St. John the Baptist. Coach Febles thought that the team would need, at the very least, a 14:02 average to finish in the top five and qualify for States. He was close: the Prep’s 14:12.00 average would be more than enough to do the job. The Prep was also aided by subpar races from St. Joe’s Sea, which had been strong all season and simply suffered a bad race at the worst possible time (see the 2008 Prep Varsity team), and Kellenberg, who Buckley was so sure would qualify for States, as the Vikings and Firebirds finished 8th and 9th, respectively.
The Prep’s state berth was made official as soon as the results were posted. In the awarding of at-large State berths, the top four teams from the CHSAA and PSAL both received automatic bids. The fifth-place CHSAA team, Fordham Prep, would be compared to the fifth-place PSAL team, which, this year, was Stuyvesant. A “gentleman’s agreement” dictated that 3:30 be added to the CHSAA’s team average to account for the differences in course length---the CHSAA ran a 2.5-mile course at Cities, while the PSAL ran a 5K.
If Stuyvesant’s team average was below 17:42, then the Prep would be shut out of States. Fortunately, the entire Prep faithful were able to exhale in relief later that night, when the PSAL results were posted: Stuyvesant could do no better than an 18:04.41 average at Cities, and the final at-large berth would be awarded to the Prep. On a side note, the “revised” 17:42 average would have placed the Prep third in the PSAL. The CHSAA “winning” the final berth was of no surprise: it marked the 15th consecutive year the CHSAA fifth-place team had received the final berth over the PSAL fifth-place team.
Against all odds, the Prep had risen out of nowhere to qualify for States. The team was now playing with “house money,” and simply making the meet was the “gravy” as they took the 90-minute ride upstate to Wappingers Falls on Friday, November 20. The trip upstate was the Prep’s seventh this decade, including the sixth time in the last seven years, returning after a hiatus in 2008.
It was a perfectly crisp mid-November day, with sunny skies and temperatures around 55 degrees at 1:00 P.M. at race time. The team that entered the season with no expectations and ranked as low as 10th in the league during the season ended up turning yet more heads with their performance at States, placing 22 out of 27 teams, with 583 points and a 18:09.7 average over the relatively flat 5K course.
The 22nd-place finish cemented them as the top Catholic school in the five boroughs of New York City and third in the CHSAA, trailing only Chaminade and St. Anthony’s, both from Long Island. The Prep finished fourth among all New York City schools and finished ahead of two teams that had defeated them at cities---Monsignor Farrell (24th) and St. John the Baptist (25th).
“Downstate” CHSAA/PSAL States Finishers
5. Chaminade (198) (CHSAA)
10. St. Anthony’s (273) (CHSAA)
19. McKee/Staten Island Tech (516) (PSAL)
20. Brooklyn Tech (536) (PSAL)
21. Collegiate (576) (PSAL)
22. Fordham Prep (583) (CHSAA)
23. Bronx Science (616) (PSAL)
24. Monsignor Farrell (617) (CHSAA)
25. St. John the Baptist (617) (CHSAA)
27. Curtis (751) (PSAL)
It was an unbelievable end to an unbelievable season. From the time preseason started on August 31 up until race time on November 14, very few people gave the Prep any shot to make noise at the championship meets. They were stuck at the bottom of the polls all season long, and did nothing to dispute those rankings by not showing much for most of the season.
However, it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. The Prep struck quickly and forcefully when it mattered the most, catching the CHSAA by surprise with their States berth and superb finish at States. In the end, nobody will remember how they were down all season, but instead remember how when the chips were down, the Prep came through.
When the post-States poll was released, Fordham Prep was in 18th place. That’s right---at one point, they weren’t even ranked 9th in their own league, yet poll editor and Monsignor Farrell coach Tom Cuffe felt that only 17 teams in the entire state were better than the Prep. The Prep slipped to 24th following the post-Nike/Foot Locker Cross Country Regionals, but it took nothing away from the fine season Fordham Prep had when very few people were expecting it.
With a successful-against-all-odds cross-country season in the rearview mirror, the attention now shifts to the track season. The Prep is the two-time defending indoor CHSAA champions. They lost almost all of their heavy hitters to graduation---wait a second, doesn’t that sound familiar? People were saying the same thing about the cross-country team, and look how that turned out. What can Coach Febles do with the 2009-10 team? We will find out over the next six months!