Update from Head Cross Country/Track & Field Coach Kevin Donner -- November 2023

Hello everyone:

As we approach the end of the semester, a lot is going on with the cross country/track and field programs, and it's a very exciting time of the year.

This past Saturday we competed at the Patriot League Cross Country Championships at Colgate, and both the men’s and women’s teams finished a respectable fourth place among the league’s 10 schools. While things didn't go quite as planned for either race, we had others rise to solidify the spots that we felt were attainable based on the season results because of our strong depth.

Senior Abby Paczewski was all-league with her 8th-place individual finish, which is a very nice improvement after finishing 32nd last year. We scored 91 points, which was a 19-point improvement from last year, helping us jump one place in the final standings from fifth up to fourth. Our men relied on great pack running with sophomore Henry Didden our top man at 22nd place followed by our next six runners at 24-25-28-29-31-34, all within a 29-second spread. Henry was 47th last year, so also a very nice improvement. With six of our top seven and 11 of our top 12 returning next year, the future looks bright for the men’s cross country program. Army had an upset win over Boston University on the women’s side, with defending champion Navy finishing third, not too far ahead of us. Navy won the men’s meet for the third year in a row fairly handily over Army and Boston University.

Our next meet is the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional Championships at Lehigh, where both teams will be looking to get back in the top-10 after both were 12th in 2022. The women's race starts at noon, followed by the men at 1 p.m.

The track and field athletes have been training all fall and on Sunday, November 12, we will have our Annual Blue-Orange Intrasquad Indoor Track & Field scrimmage at 1 p.m. in the Gerhard Fieldhouse. I love this weekend as we get some cross country and indoor track and field action on the same weekend. Our first indoor track and field meet is the Bison Opener on Friday-Saturday, December 1-2.

As most of you know, we have a few alumni functions this year with the first one coming on Tuesday, December 12 for all those living in the Denver, Colorado area at the Wonderland Brewing Company from 6:30 p.m.- 9 p.m. We will have food and drinks available along with a few members of my coaching staff. The address is 5450 West 120th Ave, Broomfield, CO 80020. Please RSVP to me if you plan to attend. We had a similar reception last year while my coaching staff was at the USTFCCCA Convention in Denver and I felt it was so good that we should do it again. We are back in Denver for the convention that week.

Also a reminder, we will be hosting the Patriot League Outdoor Track and Field Championships on Friday-Saturday, May 3-4 at the Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium and we plan to have an alumni tailgate during the duration of the meet just outside the stadium. All alumni and their families are welcome. That same weekend, we plan to honor the 1973-74 Cross Country/Track and Field program which will be celebrating its 50th anniversary as Bucknell's first-ever cross country conference championship when they won the MAC in the fall of 1973. I also believe we should honor the outdoor track and field team that clinched its first-ever conference championship by winning the 4 x 400 relay only to be wrongly disqualified for excess celebration and thus ending up second as a team. Although they did not win, this meet kick-started a program that won many more track and field championships over the years.

For those in the Philly area, I encourage you to attend our men's basketball game at Penn on Wednesday, November 8 at 7 p.m. I will be attending our Bucknell Athletics happy hour social that evening from 5-6:30 p.m. at the New Deck Tavern (3408 Sansom St., Philadelphia, PA 19104) and would enjoy seeing you there and/or at the game. Please let Todd Newcomb, director of the Bison Club, know if you have any questions by emailing tnewcomb@bucknell.edu. RSVPs are not required for the happy hour and game tickets can be purchased through Penn's Box Office.

I look forward to seeing many of you throughout the year.

Kevin Donner
Head Cross Country/Track & Field Coach
Bucknell University
kdonner@bucknell.edu

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