Harper completes national championship run
The Harper men’s cross country program is returning from the National Junior College Athletic Association championships Sunday with a little extra baggage: the championship trophy.
Under coach Jim Macnider, the Hawks prevailed among 21 teams on Saturday on the 5-mile course in Springfield, Mass., behind a fourth-place individual finish from Conant product Pablo Ramirez.
Harper finished at 60 points. SUNY-Delhi, which had won the seven previous national meets, placed second at 97 and Mohawk Valley was third at 113.
The national title is Harper’s first in cross country.
Robert Allen of Rhode Island Community College won in 25:23; Ramirez finished in 26:02.
Harper had two more runners earn All-American honors: Cisco Soto (Lake Zurich) was seventh in 26:57 and Ryan Wojdyla (Palatine) was 14th in 27:12.
The other competitors for the Hawks were Steve Heer (Rolling Meadows, 21st, 27:34), Troy Cunningham (Conant, 23rd, 27:37), Tom Johnson (Lake Zurich, 27:52, 27th) and Zach Gates (Palatine, 41st, 28:40).
“I’m really pleased,” said Harper coach Jim Macnider. “Pablo ran great, just like he has all year for us. He was somewhere around 60th at the first mile marker but just worked his way up the rest of the way.”
Macnider compared the hilly course to Veterans Acres Park in Crystal Lake, with one very steep climb followed by a sequence of longer uphills and downhills.
The whole weekend was complicated by the lingering effects of the freakish early snowstorm that ripped the Northeast. Macnider said practice sessions for the championship race were partly run on road courses in an effort to preserve the race course.
None of which seemed to bother Harper, which entered the race ranked No. 2 nationally and had every hope of bringing home the championship in Macnider’s first season.
“We got outstanding efforts from everyone,” Macnider said. “I couldn’t be more proud of our kids.”