Farrell Takes on NCAA Division III Nationals Saturday
BETHLEHEM, Pa. --- Senior Dillon Farrell of the Moravian College men's cross country team is looking for redemption at the 2014 NCAA Division III National Championship that are being hosted by Wilmington College on the Golf Center at King's Island in Mason, Ohio on Saturday, November 22 after withdrawing mid-race last year due to illness.
BETHLEHEM, Pa. --- Senior Dillon Farrell of the Moravian College men's cross country team is looking for redemption at the 2014 NCAA Division III National Championship that are being hosted by Wilmington College on the Golf Center at King's Island in Mason, Ohio on Saturday, November 22 after withdrawing mid-race last year due to illness.
Farrell, who owns the top five times in the 8K in school history and seven of the top nine, has been honored three times by the Landmark Conference as Athlete of the Week this fall, twice with the Corvias ECAC DIII South Co-Runner of the Week and the USTFCCCA Division III National Athlete of the Week in early September this fall.
It is the third straight year Farrell will represent Moravian College at the Division III Championships in cross country. He worked his was there by taking second at the Landmark Conference Championships on November 1 to earn Landmark All-Conference First Team honors for a third straight year. Farrell captured a seventh place finish and All-Region at the 2014 Division III Mideast Region last Saturday hosted by Dickinson College to earn his trip to nationals.
Director of Men's and Women's Track and Field and Cross Country Jesse Baumann hopes that this is the year for the senior runner to claim what the two have been working towards the past four years of the common goal of earning title of All-American.
"Dillon really is in the best shape of his life, commented Baumann. "He put in an incredible summer of training with good volume at a good pace, including an 18 miler averaging about 5:30/mile. We use a few "checkpoint workouts" throughout the year and that's even more proof to me that he's in the best shape he's been in.
"At Regionals, he was running shoulder to shoulder with the leaders and at about 1,200 meters to go he tried a move a bit too soon that didn't quite work," Baumann continued. Once he realized that he just tried to preserve his NCAA qualifying spot. We both would have preferred a higher finish, but we also know the real goal is just to get to NCAAs so he played it safe the last kilometer of the race to ensure that happened."
Farrell's best time of the year so far is 24:37 at the Princeton Invitational on October 18, and that was just two seconds off of his school-record time on the same course in 2013.
"Ideally the course at NCAAs would be a little hillier for him, but he's also excelled on flat, fast courses like this before," stated Baumann. "At Princeton, he ran one second slower than the regional champ from Saturday, and he was roughly 10 seconds faster than the runner who placed 2nd at regionals, so clearly he can still compete well with individuals who will be contending for All American, on a similar course."
This fall, Farrell is looking to improve on his past NCAA experiences. As a sophomore, he was 109th of 276 runners at the 2012 NCAA Division III National Championships Saturday hosted by Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in 25:46, and he became ill during the race at Hanover (Ind.) College a year ago, having to withdraw before completing the race.
"At NCAAs, the goal is to earn an All American award (top 35), and he certainly has the ability to do that," explained Baumann. "We have a plan that we've tried to mimic in training the past eight weeks or so. We'll scout the course on Thursday and tweak a strategy from there, then it's just a matter of putting himself in position during the race."
The top 35 finishers in the Division III Championships are recognized as All-Americans by the NCAA, and the United States Track and Field Association selects the top 15 for All-America honors.
