Cobleskill, N.Y.: After a Covid canceled 2020 season the SUNY Cobleskill men's cross-country team is ready to make a fresh start in a band new conference, the North Atlantic Conference (NAC), as the 2021 campaign fast approaches. After winning the North Eastern Athletic Conference (NEAC) title in 2019 the Fighting Tigers will be looking to transition successfully to the new league and with NCAA Division III Regional realignment; a move to the Niagara Region, from the Atlantic Region.

Leading the team's transition to the NAC will be the Cobleskill's venerable Head Coach Mitch Tomaszkiewicz who be entering his 29^th season at the helm of the program making him the second longest tenured cross-country coach in his position at the same institution at all levels of the SUNY System.

When asked about what he thinks about competing in a new league and a new region, Tomaszkiewicz gave one of his patented tongue in cheek answers.

"New league, new region, old coach same basic concept. Run far, run fast and run the right course. It really doesn't matter if you are running in: New York, Washington D.C, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Vermont or Maine or whatever conference or region that you are running in. Running is running. While we might have changed leagues and regions but we are not going to change how we do things or what we hope to accomplish on a yearly basis."

The Fighting Tigers will enter the 2021 season and NAC competition led by four upperclassmen who were All-NEAC performers prior to the pandemic. The talented quartet is highlighted by the 2019 NEAC Individual Champion senior Jared Craw, Colonie, N.Y., Colonie High School/Hudson Valley Community College, along with two-time NEAC First Team honoree senior Dillon VanDemortel, Newark, N.Y., Newark High School. Also returning this season to the line-up will be a pair of former NEAC Second Team members in senior Nick Merando, Cortlandt Manor, N.Y., Walter Panas High School, and junior Tucker Skowrya, Hardwick, Mass., Quabbin Regional High School.

The recruiting class will feature three talented newcomers led by first-year performers Eamonn Sullivan, Wappingers Falls, N.Y., Fordam Prep High School, and Shane Viscosi,, Fultonville, N.Y., Fonda-Fultonville High School, along with SUNY Binghamton transfer sophomore Nick Logan, Queensbury, N.Y., Queensbury High School.

The Fighting Tigers will open the season on Saturday September 4 when they travel to Marcy, N.Y. for the 2021 SUNY Poly Short Course Invitational beginning at 10:30 a.m.