Falcons Soar on Eagles' Course

The Daytona State Men's Cross Country took big strides today at the Embry Riddle Invitational in Daytona Beach Saturday. Holding out two of their top runners, the Falcons were still able to finish fourth out of 12 teams, finishing closely behind two Region 8 rivals."The men's team basically did a complete turn around from last week. They went out and raced much better." Wilson commented. The Falcon mens team ended up fourth, a good showing in spite of holding out sophomores Jesse Barral and Andrew Guillory. "This group is right where they need to be at this point in the season." Wilson said. Andy Martinez, freshman from Melbourne Florida, led the Falcon men's team with a 9th place finish overall and a time of 27:45.   "Andy is a talented young runner. He ran a solid race, but knows that he has more to give."  Wilson said.  The next three Falcons to finish are all freshman and handled their new race distance well.  "We will be working on learning the 8k distance and how to run it strategically.  This was one of the harder courses you will run in this area.  It's quite unforgiving."  Wilson said.  Tyler Gilbert, running on the course behind his alma mater, Mainland HS, finished 19th place with a time of 28:43.  The thrid and fourth Falcons, Tyler Baker (Atlantic HS) and Adam Mastrobuono (Hagery HS) ran the majority of the race together and finished in 29th and 30th places.  Finishing out the scoring for the Falcons was David Phillips from Lake Nona HS in 58th place.  "David really had to dig down today as he was in that last scoring position for us.  This will help boost his confidence as he looks to finish up his career here at Daytona State on a high note."  Wilson commented.  

Next up for the Falcons is the Seminole State Invitational at Seminole State's Oviedo Campus, Friday Sept 27th, men's 5k race goes off at 6pm.