CHARLIE THOMPSON, Special to The Denisonian—

As of late, the Denison Men’s Cross Country team has been on a come up. Having not finished within the top three in the conference since the 1990s, Denison surprised everyone by finishing third behind two strong teams in Allegheny and DePauw at last year’s North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) Cross Country Conference meet. 

Though they have lost reigning conference champion Keanan Ginell ‘22, Big Red Cross Country looks to have a promising season with a young and experienced core group of runners, with their first real challenge occurring on Sept. 10 at Wittenberg University. 

Traveling to Wittenberg in Springfield, OH, Denison was more than prepared. Facing a tough meet with many strong teams from the NCAC, Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference and Ohio Athletic Conference, Big Red Cross Country was not shaken. Team captain Worth Hinshaw, a junior from Charlotte, NC, spoke about how the team’s summer training and preseason camp helped toughen and mold the team into a lean, mean, running machine. 

Said Hinshaw, “We’re coming off a long summer of pretty high mileage, but we’ve had a really strong foundation coming off of all of that high volume. Team camp, we obviously stepped into some race preparation stuff, we’ve had more workouts, two practices a day most days, and it was really great to see everyone’s fitness and work over the summer start to pay off.” 

Head coach Mark FitzPatrick, who has been leading the team for the last eleven seasons, has been pushing the team to their limits, while also encouraging the team to take the time to treat their body correctly. 

“[Coach FitzPatrick’s] big emphasis was on the little things, and it always has been. You can do all the running you want, you can do all the training you want, but if you’re not focusing on your sleep, what you eat, what you put in your body, your recovery, then all that training is almost for nothing, and it gets you maybe halfway. That’s what we’ve been focused on a lot, capitalizing on little details that can make a huge difference for us,” according to Hinshaw. 

Obviously this has been paying dividends for the team as many of the team members are running at near-peak levels only two weeks into the season. Having competed at Wooster in a friendly race, Denison had a close group of finishers, with four runners finishing in the top twenty, just seconds apart. 

However, no better example of this hard work paying off was sophomore Tomás Brockett-Delgado’s standout performance on the Wittenberg course. 

Having run a personal best 8 kilometer time of 28:17.9 at the NCAC Conference meet last season, Brockett-Delgado shaved well over a minute off in his second race back, finishing fourteenth overall, and second on the team with a time of 27:01.3. 

Sophomore Nathan Bertman, the team’s best runner, also finished well, running a near personal record of 26:35.3 for a fourth place finish, mere seconds behind Manchester University’s Enrique Salazar, Wittenberg’s Conor Kolka and Ohio Northern’s Stephen Faltay. Speaking briefly about the race, 

Coach FitzPatrick praised the team for sticking to their strategy of running as a pack, as well as the performances of Brockett-Delgado and Bertman. 

“We established a good position and pack at the beginning of the race, which allowed us to execute our strategy for the meet. Our top seven runners ran very well, especially Nate’s fourth place finish and Tomas’ breakthrough performance,” said FitzPatrick. 

Looking ahead to the rest of the season, Big Red Cross Country knows they have challengers looking not only to fill the spot left by Allegheny, but beat the longstanding conference titan DePauw. Hinshaw, who looks to set the tone for a young and incredibly competitive team, says the goal has always been to beat DePauw. However, he is aware that it may not come this year. 

“I think [Coach FitzPatrick] knows that [winning conference] is a possibility and I think we all believe, we’re all envisioning it, but we’re also seeing this as a two year goal. We don’t have any seniors this year, so everything that we do this year, the goal is for us to improve on it next year,” explained Hinshaw. 

There is no room for error this season, but with support from a powerful foundation of veteran runners, supplemented by stellar rookies, Big Red Cross Country is confident, calm, and collected. The team races again in a dual meet against Wooster on Thursday, Sept. 22, at Denison’s own course.