Success and improvement are both words which can be used to describe the 2012 Southern Vermont College men's cross country season as all runners worked hard to set personal records, some even breaking onto the school's all-time top list.
Out of the six Mountaineer harriers, only two had previous collegiate running experience entering the season back in August. That did not deter the others from setting personal goals and working hard to benefit their own times as well as the overall score of the team in each meet.
"I am thrilled with the way the season ended up," commented head coach Maria Stuber. "We were a completely different team than last year."
The early portion of the season tested the men on hard courses, including the Mountaineer Invitational which they hosted on Mount Anthony in September. The team placed 10th in the Smith Invitational, 3rd at the Middlebury Invite, 6th in the home event, and eighth at the Vermont State Championships held at Lyndon State College. Throughout these races, the Mountaineers were led by freshman Joshua Ceasar (Bardstown, Ky.) who also grabbed a New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) Rookie of the Week honor in the process.
Hard work paid great dividends in mid-October at the Western New England Golden Bear Invitational in Springfield, Mass. All six Mountaineers made personal-best times with two reaching the all-time SVC leaderboard: Ceasar came in 18th at 27:41 to put him at 2nd on the school's top ten list, and sophomore captain Victor Velazquez (Los Angeles, Calif.) finished at 31:15 in 111th place, placing him, at the time, 10th for an SVC runner. Freshman Antonio Berardino (Lecheria, Venezuela) took over ten minutes off his personal best to come in at 35:12 and earn a team trip to the nearby Basketball Hall of Fame. Ceasar and Velazquez were named the NECC Rookie and Runner of the Week, respectively, for their performances.
Stuber and the team worked hard all season on pacing, eventually getting to the point where each runner could hit a desired pace based on feel alone. "It was a great feeling to watch them have the confidence to run our race plan and trust that it would pay off in the end," noted Stuber. This was never more evident than in the NECC Championship in late October.
SVC finished 27 points better than in the 2011 NECC title meet, finishing 2nd in the race, the best-ever for the Mountaineers since the conference was formed in 2008. A weekend off between the Golden Bear and NECC meets helped prepare Stuber's crew for a full-hearted performance which saw the team pull from 3rd to 2nd in the final mile, a feat which can be credited to the diligent work on pacing. Coach Stuber claimed, "It was a great feeling to watch them have the confidence to run our race plan and trust that it would pay off in the end." SVC was down entering the final stretch, but made up seven places to nudge Mitchell College.
Ceasar earned an All-NECC First Team honor with a 4th-place finish (28:34), while Velazquez made his way to the all-conference second team by coming in 10th (31:16). Freshman Cameron Curtiss (Milton, Vt.) also beat his personal best by finishing with a time of 33:55. Ceasar's placing was the highest since SVC Athletics Hall of Fame member Dan Dix's 2001 1st-place finish in the Great Northeastern Athletic Conference Championship.
A season of hard work and preparation led the Mountaineers to the NCAA New England Regional in the second week of November, a championship at which they finished in 43rd out of the 50 teams that placed.
Velazquez again surpassed his personal best by finishing at 30:07, moving him up to 9th all-time for an SVC harrier. The team finished 160 points than it did in 2011, with this year's championship course being more difficult than its predecessor. Curtiss also broke his best 8K time with a 33:06; through the season, he took about 8:30 off his times as the weather got colder and bodies started to fatigue.
"I think we put ourselves back on the map this year," said Stuber. "If we can keep working as hard all year as we did this fall, great things will happen."