The Geneva men’s cross country team enters the season with a bigger roster than usual with bigger expectations as well.
“This is potentially one of the best teams we have ever had,” said Geneva cross country coach Brian Yowler. “We’re very, very young – six of our 14 runners are freshmen- but we have high expectations.”
The Golden Tornadoes have just three seniors on the roster – Samuel Batchelder (Venetia, PA/Peters Township), Jason Buchholz (Pittsburgh, PA/Taylor Allderdice), and Caleb Reyle (West Grove, PA/Avon Grove Charter).
“Potentially, we could have only one junior in our top seven runners with the rest being freshmen and sophomores,” Yowler said. “Four of the top six could even end up being sophomores, it depends on how quickly they adjust to running the longer distance in college. It’s a challenge both mentally and physically but mentally it is a difficult adjustment to the longer distance – from 3.1 miles to five.”
The Golden Tornadoes finished seventh of nine teams in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference in 2014 and are picked to finish fifth this year in the pre-season poll. Two runners are listed as conference runners to watch – junior Ken Kutcel (Medina, OH/Medina) and sophomore Clay Smith (Williamsport, MD/Williamsport).
The young Golden Tornadoes will open their season on September 1 at Grove City with the conference cross country season culminating in the PAC Championship at St. Vincent on October 31. In that case, the host is the team Yowler considers the team to beat.
“St. Vincent has won the conference championship four years in a row,” said Yowler. “They’ll be the team to beat.”
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