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Justyn Knight crossed the finish line, unsure of the result. It was a November afternoon, and Knight was representing Syracuse at the 2015 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships in Louisville, Kentucky.

After he crossed the finish line, Knight was quickly pulled into an interview. But his mind was racing. From afar, SU’s best runner saw his teammates and coaches huddled up as they awaited the announcement. He desperately wanted to join them.

“Did we win? Did we not do it?” Knight thought to himself.

The anticipation ate at him. Midway through the interview, he saw everyone start screaming. Syracuse had done it.

After making the NCAA Championships in the previous six seasons, never getting over the hump, the Orange had captured their first national championship in 64 years. A decade later, the 2015 title is still the crowning moment in the program’s ascension to elite status.

Now, the seven runners Syracuse brought to Louisville — Knight, Colin Bennie, Martin Hehir, Philo Germano, Joel Hubbard, Dan Lennon and Joseph Kush — will be celebrated on Saturday for the 10th anniversary during SU’s football game against Duke.

“People will forget and it’ll fade into time, and that’s all fine and dandy, but we’ll never forget,” Hehir said. “We’ll still be talking about it when we’re old.”

But heading into the meet, Syracuse was far from a shoo-in for the title.

During his recruiting process, Lennon’s high school coach weighed in on his decision. Because of the Orange’s mediocre track record in the late 20th century, he told Lennon not to commit there.

Lennon ignored his coach’s advice, citing the program’s rapid growth under head coach Chris Fox.

And after Hubbard — who he already knew from high school races — committed to the Orange, Lennon foreshadowed the championship win to his future teammate.

“Hey, in 2015, who knows?” Lennon said to Hubbard. “We could be NCAA cross country champions.”

Fox continued to fill out his roster and coaching staff after nabbing Lennon and Hubbard. In the summer of 2012, he added assistant coach Adam Smith to his staff.

Smith was previously an assistant coach at North Carolina after an illustrious collegiate career with the Tar Heels. He saw the writing on the wall after UNC head coach Dennis Craddock retired, so he left Chapel Hill. He landed a job at Dartmouth after Fox connected him with its coach. So, when an assistant role for the Orange later opened, Smith said he took it and ran.

When Smith arrived for the 2012 season, Syracuse appeared in three consecutive national championships, but it never finished above 14th. SU already had talented runners like Hehir, Kush and Lennon from the previous year. Hehir stood out among the rest, winning the Big East Championships as a freshman.

But Fox and Smith wanted to surround him with more top runners. They emphasized gathering the best recruits in the region. Five of the seven runners who ran in the 2015 national championship were from New York. Before the 2013 season, SU also got freshman commitments from Bennie, a Massachusetts native, and Germano from Albany.

“(Germano) was a guy who I recruited from the start,” Smith said. “He had made Footlocker, he made Nike Nationals, but was just a kid who you could tell there was something special about him.”

The main exception was Knight, one of the most decorated recruits to ever pick the Orange. Knight, a native of Vaughan, Ontario, was already the Canadian Jr. Cross Country Champion and went undefeated as a high school senior.

Fox and his staff didn’t recruit beyond their region often, but they knew breaking the informal rules for Knight would be worthwhile. Fox and Smith teamed up to try and sign Knight, and they successfully did ahead of the 2014 season.

“He’s the best recruit that Syracuse will ever have,” Smith said.

After signing top recruits and maintaining a strong core of upperclassmen, Syracuse dominated the 2014 season. The Orange finished first in the Wisconsin Meet of Champions, ACC Championships and NCAA Northeast Regional.

While they entered the 2014 NCAAs as the second-best team in the nation, they ultimately finished fifth and watched Colorado claim the crown for the second straight year. Syracuse simply couldn’t handle the pressure.

“We showed up and basically laid an egg,” Hubbard said. “It was like, ‘Whoa, maybe we weren’t ready for that.’”

Despite falling short, the Orange knew they’d have high expectations in 2015, with plenty of talent planning to return. Five of its seven runners from 2015 also ran in the championships the year before.

“All of a sudden we’re going, ‘Hey, if we think that we underperformed by a significant margin and we’re fifth, that bodes well,’” Bennie said. “Leaving Indiana in 2014, we all were already starting to think about November 2015.”

Just under a year later, they got their chance at redemption. After sweeping the Wisconsin Adidas Invitational, ACC Championships and NCAA Northeast Regional, the Orange entered the NCAA Championship desperately hoping to defeat Colorado, who had returned most of its roster.

“If they had done a College Game Day set for NCAA (cross country), every single analyst would have picked Colorado,” Hubbard said.

On that windy autumn afternoon, Knight set the tone, scoring third place. Bennie and Hehir finished close behind, taking seventh and eighth, respectively. Germano claimed 29th, then Hubbard placed 35th. Lennon (51st) and Kush (99th) capped off the event for Syracuse.

At the NCAA Championships, standings are determined by the roster’s average time. With an average time of 30:08.50, the Orange barely topped the Buffaloes’ average of 30:10.20, giving them the win and avenging their disappointment from 2014.

For Hehir, Kush and Lennon, it was the last time they raced for Syracuse. Kush was a fifth-year, which meant even more to him.

“I had no regrets, but it would have been like, ‘Damn, I grind it so hard five years every day, run my ass off, and we got fourth.’”

The win catapulted Syracuse into national recognition. From 1974 to 2009, Syracuse went 35 years without competing at NCAAs. Now, the Orange have raced in the season’s final event for 16 consecutive seasons, the fourth-longest active streak.

“It was just cool to change that culture slowly by getting more and more guys to buy in,” Kush said. “We went from nothing to an amazing team, and now they’ve sustained that excellence, which is all you can hope for.”

Kush, like many of his former teammates, keeps tabs on the program. The 2015 team still texts regularly and often reunites through weddings or occasional meet-ups. They’ll all be together on Saturday in the Dome.

All seven runners have committed to attending. Knight, still a professional runner and Olympian, is coming from Oregon. Bennie, Germano and Hubbard are traveling from the Boston area. Hehir and Kush are coming from Virginia, while Lennon is coming from Albany.

Nearly a decade later, they’re still travelling great lengths for Syracuse, the program that gave them one of their fondest memories.

Published on September 23, 2025 at 10:45 pm
Contact Aidan: aidan.tseng@gmail.com