Notebook: Gatewood making big strides for St. Anthony's

By Brian Towey for DyeStat

St. Anthony’s NY senior Mason Gatewood has emerged as one of the surprises in this young cross country season.

A former soccer player who is only undertaking his second season on the trails, Gatewood won the St. Anthony’s Invitational in 16 minutes, 3 seconds Saturday on the 5-kilometer course at Sunken Meadow State Park, following a second-place finish Sept. 23 at the Ocean State Invitational in Warwick, R.I.

“(I’ve just been working on) consistency,” said Gatewood, a native of Garden City, N.Y.

“This summer I was fully integrated into the team and the training program. I’m sticking to Coach (Tim) Dearie’s plan. He’s the best coach in the country.”

In Dearie’s eyes, Gatewood has come a long way since he began cross country last fall.

“He was a half-miler who ran cross country,” said Dearie, an alumnus of the school who has coached there since 2006.

“He was totally intimidated. He couldn’t run a 5K. When he ran 2.5K at Van Cortlandt Park (in the Bronx) at the end of last season and he ran 13:10, I saw something. He was running taller and with more focus. I told him right there, ‘Don’t think you’re just a half-miler. You’re going to run the half mile. But you’re at least a miler.’”

With a season of cross country under his belt, Gatewood kept improving on the track.

“Last spring he took it to another level,” Dearie said. “He ran 4:12/1:52. He was a 4:30 guy in the winter.”

St. Anthony’s isn’t at top strength yet. But with Matt Payamps, who ran 4:18 as a sophomore, leading a deep junior class there is room for growth.

“We focus pretty strongly on the (New York State) Federation Championship,” Dearie said. “I know other teams have skipped it to go to NXN. I’ve seen teams skip Feds, go to Nike, then not qualify, and they could have won a championship for their school.

“For us, there is only one team championship and that’s the Federation meet. That and the CHSAA Championship. That has a lot of history. It’s been going on for 90 years.”

Past runners have included John Gregorek – father of Johnny Gregorek – who qualified for the 1980 Olympics in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, as well as the vaunted Crooke brothers of the 1970s: Peter, John, Bob and Rich.  

Top New Jersey teams adjusting peak time

There are a few programs in New Jersey trying to do something new in order to peak late with a chance of qualifying for Nike Cross Nationals. 

“We’re purposely trying to peak at Group (championships), Meet of Champions, (NXR) regionals,” Colt’s Neck (N.J.) coach Jim Schlentz said of his girls team.

Schlentz, a 40-year veteran and former coach at La Salle University, is staggering his team’s training two weeks behind last year’s pace.

"After last year’s experience and knowing that this team is young and excited (we’re tempering things),” he said. 

Princeton NJ boys coach Jim Smirk, whose team is looking to defend its title at New Jersey Meet of Champions, is taking a similar approach.

“I think the biggest thing we learned last year is how long our season is,” Smirk said. “We put a little too much pressure on ourselves at NXN. Instead of trusting ourselves, we tried to do a super-human effort.”   

Kingsway repping South Jersey

The girls from New Jersey’s Kingsway Regional (Woolwich Township, N.J.) finished sixth at last year’s NXR Northeast and third at New Jersey’s Meet of Champions, but the school is far from the state’s running hubs. 

“It’s easy not to notice Kingsway,” said Christian Lynch, a former runner at Princeton who has coached at the school since 2002.

“We’re down in South Jersey. We’re not known as an area that produces athletes. But there is good talent down (here).”

Lynch, a former runner at Delsea Regional in Franklinville, N.J., and Caitlin Hess, who originally came from a soccer background, share coaching responsibilities with the girls and boys teams.

“We believe in the idea of a program,” Lynch said. “Each of us works with the boys and girls teams.”

Despite perceptions, Lynch spoke to the area’s tradition, and how it’s helped the program reach this point.

“We’re proud to be a part of the South Jersey community,” Lynch said. “There’s a lot of talent that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.

“You start back in the 70s and 80s with Paul VI. Jason DiJoseph (second at the 1988 Kinney Nationals) ... Coach (Mike) Glavin (of Paul VI) who is now the coach at St. Joseph’s University. Haddonfield, with its 200 straight dual meet wins. Ocean City, Shawnee, their programs of the past on the gals’ side, Cherokee. We’ve really tried to take lessons from those guys. They showed us the way to go.”