The Syracuse men’s cross country team roared out of the gate in early September with a second-place finish at the Harry Lang Invitational and a win at the Colgate Invitational.

The squad posted impressive numbers in October, finishing first at the Wisconsin Invitational and second at Pre-Nationals, both against the nation’s top talent.

And then on Oct. 31, the Orange won the Big East Championship for the first time in program history.

But even with such eye-opening victories, the team continues to have trouble actually opening eyes around the NCAA, flying under the radar for most of the season.

‘It’s good to hear people talk about you, but we’re still just running kind of unrepresented among all the other teams,’ sophomore Griff Graves said. ‘We’re doing well, and I think people know what an up-and-coming program this is, but they don’t know for sure.’

Graves said the team is not being noticed this season because it failed to live up to expectations last season.

‘We were expected to run pretty well throughout the season as a new program,’ he said. ‘Toward the end of the year last season, we had a lot of problems with injuries and illnesses and just the weight of the team being held on the shoulders of four freshmen and sick upperclassmen.’

Due to injuries to Jay Koloseus and Jeff Scull, coupled with Stephen Murdock and Dan Busby falling ill, Graves and fellow freshmen Tito Medrano, Pat Dupont and Steve Weeks were pressed into duty early in the season to fill in for the fallen members of the team’s top five.

‘Throughout the season, we started declining in performance and placement in the Big East,’ Medrano said. ‘People didn’t really look into it and just assumed, ‘Oh, Syracuse already hit their high and now they’re declining.”

Despite an increase in performance this year, Medrano feels that most teams still expect Syracuse to crumble in the end.

‘It kind of makes us angry,’ he said. ‘We know what we can do. We know what happened last year because we’re the team. We realize that. For us, we kind of have a chip on our shoulder, and we want to prove people wrong.’

A Big East title is certainly a step in the right direction in showing the nation that the Orange may have some staying power, but in order to shake the underdog reputation, it has one more step to take.

‘We’re going to try and let them know at nationals,’ Graves said.

Being the underdog has its benefits, however.

To the Orange, it’s the results that matter. The underdog label allows for it to achieve while removing the pressure of trying to ‘protect the Hill,’ as Medrano put it, referring to the teams that are expected to perform at elite levels.

‘I think we all probably perform a little better with a chip on our shoulder,’ SU head coach Chris Fox said. ‘Everyone likes to be the underdog. If we continue to do what we’re capable of doing, we won’t be the underdog for very long, and we’ll have to take a new mental approach to the game.’

With the NCAA Northeast Regional on Saturday and the NCAA National Championships on Nov. 23, Syracuse feels it has the pieces to finally put itself on the map as one of those elite programs in the country.

Said Medrano: ‘We have the tools and the runners to do it, so it’s about time we do it.’

pcgeorge@syr.edu

Published on November 10, 2009 at 12:00 pm