BENWAY - CLARKSON ATHLETIC HALL of FAME

Only the second Clarkson Cross Country runner to ever reach the NCAA National Championships and a standout for four years at the USCSA National Championships for Nordic Skiing, Alex Benway becomes the first male representative of those sports in the Golden Knights’ Athletic Hall of Fame.

When Benway qualified for the NCAA National Championships as a cross country runner in 2011 it was no surprise as the senior had taken his training to a different level the previous 12 months. Benway had been a top runner for the Knights since arriving on campus in 2008, achieving Liberty League Second-Team All-Star honors in 2009, when he finished ninth in the conference race, and Liberty League First-Team All-Star honors in 2010, as he placed sixth in the event. Although it was not his fastest time of the year up to that point, Benway finished the 2011 Liberty League Championships with a time of 26:01, nothing special when viewed out of context, but considering the race was run in a snowstorm, his second-place time was impressive. The weather and the results got even better from there, as Benway placed eighth at the NCAA Regionals held at St. Lawrence two weeks later, running the course in 25:25.4, still one of the 50 best times ever produced in the storied history of the Ronald C. Hoffmann course.

With his eighth-place showing at the NCAA Regionals, Benway was a no-doubt individual qualifier for the Golden Knights, making him the first Clarkson Cross Country runner to participate in the NCAA National Championships since the 1970s. Benway did not waste the opportunity, finishing 47th out of 279 runners. What was the most notable part of Benway’s race was how he got stronger as it went on. After the first mile, he was 129th, after the second, 115th, and after the third, 102nd. By the fourth mile he was 82nd overall, but the last mile was extraordinary, as only 12 runners in the entire field were faster in the home stretch, allowing him to leap to 47th.

In the winter, Benway was a consistent performer for the Golden Knights’ Nordic squad. Benway was among the elite as a skier from his first year with the Golden Knights, beating the dizzying heights of Devil’s Thumb near Winter Park, Colorado with three top-18 finishes in the individual races. In his sophomore year he finished 10th overall in Maine, and he was eighth overall as a junior at the USCSA National Championships in Sun Valley, Idaho, which included a second-place finish in the 1.5K Sprint. The work he put in as a runner showed during his senior ski season as well, when he finished third overall at the USCSA Nationals held in Bethel, Maine, winning both the 1.5K Sprint and the 15K Classic race, an event he claimed in 41:30, a full 47 seconds faster than the runner-up.