The men’s and women’s cross-country teams each took fifth place in Saturday’s NESCAC championship meet at Colby. Captains Wes Fuhrman ’05, Courtney Quirin ’05 and Owen Kiely ’06 each earned first-team all-NESCAC honors. Sophomore Ellen Davis rounded out the Cardinals’ top runners by making the second-team all-NESCAC.

Fuhrman finished his race in 25:29, good for second place out of the 127 total finishers, while Kiely placed fifth (25:42) in the 8,000-meter event. Quirin came in sixth to lead the Lady Cards in the 5,000-meter event (18:22), with Davis crossing the finish line just 17 seconds later, good for eighth place in a field of 123 competitors. Davis missed placing in the top seven by nine seconds, the cutoff for first-team all-NESCAC recognition.

“Individually, this race was a good prep for Regionals, but it was by no means an excellent race for me,” Quirin said. “But I’m looking forward to Regionals because I’m going to be facing the same excellent competition, and I love the course at Twinbrooke in Maine.”

Liz Colville ’05 stepped up for the women, completing the course in 19:26 and finishing in twenty-fifth place. Erin Smith ’06 placed thirty-sixth (19:43) and Megan Wise ’05 placed sixty-eighth (20:22) to round out the scoring five for the Cardinals, who competed against the other 10 NESCAC squads.

“The women’s race was a tough one,” Quirin said. “It went out really fast which made it quite difficult since the second mile is basically rolling uphill. As a team, we ran really well even without our third runner [Delia Springstubb ’08]. Liz Colville had an excellent individual performance.”

All season the men have been working to lessen the gap between their third and eighth runner. In this race, they crossed the finish line separated by just 29 seconds. Alex Battaglino ’07 came up with his best race of the season, finishing in thirty-eighth place (26:59), Jeremy Solomon ’05 continued his solid running by placing forty-first (27:03), and Jon King ’07 rounded out the top five Cardinal performances, coming in forty-eighth place (27:12). Wesleyan’s next three guys finished within 16 seconds of King. Sean “Showtime” Watson ’08 finished fiftieth (27:14), Ed “Stompy” Kenney ’07 finished fifty-eighth (27:19), and Mike “Mad Dog” Brady ’07 finished sixty-fourth (27:28), running a personal best on the course.

“A lot of folks are going to see our fifth place finish, and write us off when it comes to qualifying for Nationals,” said Nick “Saturday Night” Holowka ’07. “What they don’t realize is that we were 16 points out of third place, which would put us in a good position to qualify. Sixteen points comes down to mere seconds when you look at our three, four and five guys. What the other teams also don’t realize is that our guys are prepared to fight tooth and nail down to the last few meters when Regionals rolls around on the thirteenth. Our toughness is what gives us an edge over everyone else.”

Before heading to Regionals, the teams will head to Tufts on Saturday, Nov. 6 for the ECAC Division III meet.