By Joey Fernandez, Sports Editor Intern
For the third time in the program’s history the Moraine Valley Cyclones men’s cross country team has brought home the Illinois Skyway Collegiate Conference title. Led by first- and second-place finishers Jackson Sima and Carlos Galvan, the team was able to secure the title on home turf.
Sima and Galvan became the first runners in program history to finish a conference meet in first and second place. It’s actually the first time this has happened for the men’s or the women’s team. With four runners in the top ten, MVCC finished in dominating fashion.
“I knew what to expect from Carlos because I coached him last year,” says head coach Dimitri Dimizas. “And I knew Jackson was fast coming out of high school. So it was fun seeing those two kinda work together in practice and feed off each other.”
Dimizas earned Skyway Conference Coach of the Year on Saturday as well.
“I see it more as a result of a team accomplishment,” Dimizas said. “I always want the team to perform well. It’s nice to win it but it means more to see the kids get their conference title.”
Sima, a freshman, won the Skyway conference runner of the year. He is only the fourth male Cyclone to ever receive this honor.
Having just won the team’s third conference title in school history, this season is already historic. On top of that, the last time the Cyclones won a conference championship and had four All-Conference runners was in 2016.
The only two other years that the men’s team had won the conference title were in 2004 and in 2016. With the great team effort as well as the dominant individual performance of the runners at this last race, it shows just how legendary this season turned out to be.
The expectation for the men was to win the conference, and they did just that. Being the only nationally ranked team in the conference, MVCC was the favorite to win, but going out there and performing is still never easy.
Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic no spectators were allowed at the championship meet. Luckily, the Moraine Valley Cyclone’s Facebook page was able to live stream the event as well as the medal ceremony following the race.
This was sadly the third and final meet of the season, but the team couldn’t have capped off the year any better.
The regional championship meet would have been this weekend followed by a shot at nationals in Iowa, but the pandemic had other plans. With these last events being cancelled, the MV team finished the season as well as they possibly could have.
With all of this momentum to end the season and a brand new title to show for it, next year could quite possibly be even better. With hopes of the next season not being cut short due to the pandemic, the returning runners will look to get a lot more experience.
“I think the expectation would be to repeat as conference champs,” says coach Dimizas. “And then make it to nationals as a team. We only lose Carlos, which is a huge blow, but it’s nice that everyone would ideally be coming back.”
