Before the America East cross country championship last weekend, Binghamton University junior Casey Quaglia of Bangor and Bearcats’ coach Annette Acuff made a little wager.
“He had asked the week before in practice if the team won if he could dump our recovery drink on top of my head,” Acuff said. “Our goal was for him to make the top 10, we thought that was realistic.”
The two decided to raise the stakes, and if Quaglia earned a top-10 individual finish, he could dunk his coach himself.
Mission accomplished.
Quaglia helped lead his Bearcats to their first conference crown Saturday while finishing fourth overall and third on his team in 25 minutes, 40.80 seconds over an 8,000-meter course at the University of Vermont.
“It was definitely really overwhelming. I’m still speechless, you know. It was crazy,” the former Class A cross country state champion said.
Quaglia had been hampered by injuries over the last year or so, albeit it nothing major.
“Just nicks here and there, minor stuff [like] tendinitis,” Acuff said. “He’s had some learning experiences.”
Quaglia, who starred on the track at Bangor and led the Rams to state championships indoors and outdoors in 2007, only ran one season of cross country in high school, his senior campaign, so when he arrived on Binghamton’s campus, the sport was still fairly new to him.
“My freshman year I tried to up the mileage quite a bit, nothing spectacular,” he said. “I got injured because I was overtraining and doing more than I should have.”
But after taking it easy throughout the end of his sophomore year — Quaglia redshirted both track campaigns last year — and enjoying a solid training base over the summer, he was a lot more prepared heading into his junior year.
“He’s a very confident athlete, very confident in his abilities and his talent. It was just a matter of time and I think he was pretty patient,” Acuff said.
On Saturday, he went out hard and fast — which is a bit unusual for Qugalia, who has outstanding kicking speed. He and stayed close to top runners Erik van Ingen and Chris Gaube, who finished 1-2 for Binghamton, while four Bearcats finished in the top 10 and all five scoring runners finished ahead of team runner-up New Hampshire’s No. 2 guy.
“I don’t know, it felt really good and in the first few miles we were starting to break away,” Quaglia said.
The most fun part of the day for him was being able to catch up with former Bangor teammates Jennie Lucy and Riley Masters, who run for the University of Maine.
Masters, who with Quaglia formed arguably the best 1-2 distance combination in the state in 2007, was his former teammate’s cheerleader Saturday as he didn’t compete due to an injury.
“To tell you the truth, Riley was my most supportive fan. It was really good seeing him,” Quaglia said. “He really enhanced my performance quite a bit, cheering really loud he helped me push through a lot of the pain.”
One thing Quaglia put a lot of emphasis on over the last year or so was weight training and building strength in the core muscles, which is key for any long-distance runner.
“Last year coach was like Casey, you need to gain some weight, so I’ve been hitting the weight room extra hard,” he said. “I put on 10 pounds of just muscle, it ends up helping a lot. In running, it’s so hard to gain weight.”
Saturday was also a bright day for the University of Maine women’s cross country team, as the Black Bears finished second in their race at the America East championship.
While Stony Brook ran away with the title, scoring 28 points, coach Mark Lech’s club edged Vermont 89-98 for second place.
Maine was led by individual champ Corey Conner of North Townsend, Mass., who traversed the 5,000-meter course in 17:56.90.
Vanessa Letourneau of Fairfield was UMaine’s second runner in 11th place while Jordan Daniel of Corinna was 22nd, Allison Conner, Corey’s sister, 25th, Whitney Chamberlain of Scarborough 31st, Bangor’s Lucy 36th and Hilary Maxim of Old Town 45th.
The Maine men finished seventh behind Miles Bartlett of Casco’s eighth-place effort.
The Black Bears run again in the Northeast Regional meet in Boston on Nov. 14.
rmclaughlin@bangordailynews.net
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