Morristown Boys Cross-Country Runs All Over the Competition

In their last dual meet of the season, Morristown coach Paul Buccino and his boys cross-country team looked to make a big impact.

On Wednesday, Oct. 18, at the cross-country course in Greystone/Central Park,  they did exactly that by beating both Parsippany Hills High School and Mendham High School, improving their record to 7-3.

Coach Buccino said he didn't expect to beat both teams on Wednesday, being that Mendham is known to be one of the top schools in the state, but his expectations were still high for his predominantly young varsity team.  They weren't going to take Parsippany Hills lightly, either, as "there are no free rides" he said.

Morristown boasts an extremely talented freshman class, who all race at the varsity level. "The freshman we have right now are amongst the best freshman in New Jersey," Buccino said.  They were able to win the Manhattan College Invitational, Shore Coaches Invitational, placed second in the Stewart Invitational and have been invited to the Freshman Meet of Champions. "There isn't a freshman team in the county or area that comes close to them," the coach said.

As for his sophomores, they were the class that won the freshman championships last year. "Our freshman and sophomores have been a major highlight to the cross-country team this year," he said.

Veteran lead runner, Brian Bowmaster, brings much skill and experience to this younger team and he definitely demonstrated resilience as he raced much of the course with only one shoe.

"Someone stepped on the heal of my shoe about three quarters of a mile into the race and I ran with it hanging off of my foot for maybe a about a quarter mile or so until it fell off of my foot completely," he said. "At that point I wanted to give up, but I pushed through it.  The only real problem was when I was running through gravel. It felt like it was tearing up my foot. I feel like I still did really well." Bowmaster came in second overall, running a 17:15. 

Jeremy Gauell, another veteran who battled through adversity as he hurt his foot in the beginning of the race, was still able to pull a time of 17:55 despite the rocky start. 

"I hurt my foot in the beginning of the race but I continued to push as hard as I could," he said. Gauell, who was inured over the summer, said he wished he could have trained a little more coming into the season. "I'm just glad I was able to help my team today," he said.

CJ Katz, one of this years standout sophomores, had a great race coming in around the 18:15 mark, but was still hard on himself.  "I felt like I could've kicked a little more at the end," he said. "I beat my personal record by a lot, which is good.  My team did awesome so I'm pretty happy about that."

Junior Brandon Ellison, who came in close behind Bowmaster, said he was very happy with his performance as he also took seconds off of his own personal record. "My intentions for this race were to pretty much go out hard and pass as many people as I could and try to roll over this course," he said. "It felt good, because it felt like I was cruising the whole thing."

After the meet Coach Buccino was ecstatic about the win. Visibly and extremely proud of his entire team he told his squad, "We've got one powerful cross-country team here. We had about six, seven guys run in the 17's (minutes). One guy runs with one shoe and one guy with a bad foot. We got one strong team, boys."

The Colonials get to rest this weekend, then will be competing in the County Championships on Oct. 30, where they hope to place among the top seven teams out of 24, with State Sectionals to follow.