The American collegiate cross country season is fast drawing to a close, with many teams chasing places at the national championships. Conference meets were held this weekend with some very commendable performances from Irish runners. Pride of place must go to Leevale’s Paul Carroll, a freshman at Villanova. A couple of weeks ago he had more than 200 runnersahead of him as he raced at New York’s infamous Van Cortland Park. That all changed last weekend with a 34th place finish in the Big East championships, held at the same venue. His time of 26:04 is more than respectable, but of more interest is that he was a scoring member of the Villanova team. Other placings in the race saw Keith Kelly in second (24:27), Paul Reilly from Galway 13th (25:10), Dermot Galvin from Clare 16th (25:25), and Limerick’s Ciaran Lynch 18th (25:29). All four are at Providence College who finished fourth team, just one point behind Villanova in third. |