Men's & Women's Cross Country

2002 Team Outlooks

Sophomore Darryl Brown and the duo of juniors Erin Coyne and Kelly Curry will guide the East Stroudsburg cross country squads through the 2002 season.

Coach Joe Koch will take young but very talented teams into the 2002 season for his 19th-year overall at ESU.

The 2002 teams bring exciting outlooks to the table for the cross country season:

Men's Team
The Warriors bring five of their top seven runners back from a year ago as well as adding Brown to plug into the number one spot.

“We could very well be the most improved team in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference this year,” points out Koch.

ESU placed 11th a year ago in the PSAC ranks. The ascend up the Conference begins with the return of Brown to the Warriors. The sophomore ran out to a 26th place finish at the PSAC Championships and 27th in the NCAA Regionals in 2000.

“Darryl is one of the top runners in the PSAC and we will have a good strong group behind him this year,” adds Koch.

Junior Mike Loenser is the top man behind Brown for the Warriors. He had a good summer of training and expects to build on his 2001 performance.

Adding more quality experience to the ESU lineup will be junior Mike Browne and the pair of second-year men, Mike Patrizi and Matt Bowman. All three were consistently in the top five last year.

Junior Mike Badway and sophomore Rob Thomas look to continue their improvement up the team ladder and make the Warriors even deeper.

Coach Koch has also brought in two newcomers to watch for in 2002. Andy Sabella and Jon Leslie have the promise and ability to be fighting for spots in the team’s top seven.

“The only real problem to slow us down is if injuries hit,” says Koch.

Women's Team
After losing the top runner in Christel Hibbard, the Warrior women will look to four of their other remaining top six as well as four talented freshman.

“We were pretty young last year. We had a lot of depth but was all in the middle of the pack,” explains Koch. “We will have a very successful season if we can develop a front runner and move up the pack this year.”

Four juniors in Erin Coyne, Kelly Curry, Hollie Smith and Holly Holtzinger will be the leaders on a squad without a single senior.

Both Coyne and Curry placed in the top half of the women at the NCAA Regionals last year with 48th and 61st finishes. Coyne took the top spot for ESU at the Paul Short Invitational and had a season best 6K time of 23:51 at the PSAC championships.

A trio of sophomores will be looking to build upon their first collegiate seasons at ESU. Jane Grendel and Daffney Parsons search for breakout efforts in 2002.

Grendel consistently finished between the women’s third and sixth runners over last year.

The third sophomore, Krystal Klugh, could very well move up with the other six as Coach Koch expects her to be dramatically improved from a year ago.

“We have a strong group of incoming freshman that could move up into the team’s top five to seven runners very quickly and add to the uprising of the women,” tells Koch.

The group of newcomers are Vanessa Andes, Colleen Weber, Kelly Brennan and Carol Bullen.