The 2023 Ithaca College men’s cross country team is striving toward improved results this season. Despite the loss of five seniors, the South Hill squad is looking to rebound and reload with a hopeful youth movement. 

The Bombers regressed from the steady pace they had maintained in previous seasons, finishing fifth in Liberty League standings in 2022, following two straight seasons finishing third. 

Head coach Jim Nichols said he believes his returning runners will make a big impact and continue to improve on their 2022 season.

“Patrick [Bierach] is our captain this year, James [Hughes] is a junior and Drew Taylor is also a junior,” Nichols said. “I think James and Drew did well at the end of the outdoor season with their performances and if they’ve got a good summer training, which I believe they have, they should do really well.”

While upperclassmen will have an impact on the course this season, the team will go into the season carrying just one senior. To fill spots on the roster, the squad will carry 11 underclassmen, six of which are first-year students.

Junior Drew Taylor echoed the idea that the team will be younger and said it is a factor in him and other upperclassmen having to step up.

“We really only have four or five upperclassmen, so in terms of leadership and guys looking up to me, then obviously there’s a little bit more pressure having to perform,” Taylor said. “Last year I was probably our sixth guy, so I was in the top seven, but I didn’t count to the score all the time and this year, barring anything crazy, I should be in the top five pretty much every race.”

Sophomore Aidan Loughlin is a part of the team’s youth movement and has seen the team’s first-year talent come into form throughout the offseason.

“They’re all really good; I have a lot of faith,” Loughlin said. “[First-year student] Connor McGeehan stands out because he’s one of the newer guys in the sport — he only started doing cross country I think two or three years ago and a lot of the time people do it for all four years of high school and he’s proved a lot. Trevor Dix is really good. They’re all really good. Excited to see what they do.”

With all this talent, one lone senior is left to lead the squad into the future. Loughlin expressed how good of a leader senior Patrick Bierach has been in the offseason.

“Pat’s definitely a great leader, he reaches out all the time,” Loughlin said. “We all use this app Strava and I’ve had some runs where my shins were hurting and he immediately reaches out and checks in. He knows what he’s doing and I think James Hughes and some of the juniors are going to definitely try and step up. I know that they have good experience.”

Taylor said that Bierach has always been a natural leader and that even while it may not be shown, Bierach is making an impact on the team behind the scenes.

“He’s always been a leader and he’s always been a guy, at least for me, that I’ve looked up to,” Taylor said. “I’m sure there’s a ton of stuff behind the scenes that I don’t even know about between him and [Nichols] — talking back and forth, coordinating with [Nichols] on a better schedule and training and all that stuff. He’s our guy.”

Coming off an underwhelming 2022 season, Loughlin said the team knows it is not being viewed as the top dog in the Liberty League, but he still thinks it can show itself as a contender.

“I feel like we’re not really looked at as a favorite team,” Loughlin said. “We have good runners, but losing Danny Jagoe [’23] and some of our other guys, like, we had a lot of guys that were in the top seven that aren’t here now. I think we’re more of an underdog type … but we do want to show ourselves as a contender and possible team for getting high positions and team rankings.”

With the team feeling doubts from their competition, Nichols said that the goal for the upcoming season is to focus on improvement and that the team’s talent will show.

“I want each and every one in the program to improve and get better and hopefully run a personal best during the season,” Nichols said. “I want us to compete to the best of our ability to get the most out of our individual talents and the talents of the team growing together. We have to work together, have to run together, have the same goals and aspirations to be successful and overall, team results should take care of themselves based on that.”

The team will open up the season at the annual Jannette Bonrouhi-Zakaim Memorial Alumni Run on Sept. 2.