The Wesleyan Cross Country teams kicked off the season with some huge victories at the NYU Invitational on Saturday, as the Men claimed the top spot, and the Women finished third.
Owen Kiely ’06 finished in first place out of 242 competitors in the 8,000-meter run, as he crossed the finish line in an amazing 26 minutes and 29 seconds, shattering competition along with his already strong time from last year (27:16). Jon King ’07 finished in a very solid seventh place, running the course in 27:38, just a second in front of the eighth place Anda Greeney ’07, and eleven seconds ahead of Sean Watson ’08.
Watson surprised some people by finishing in 13th place for the Cardinals, but the story of the day was Jeremy Solomon ’05, who returned to racing for the first time since the cross-country Regionals in 2001. Solomon placed 21st, as he ran 8,000 meters in 28:02, but his long-awaited comeback was not easy.
“Making my comeback was about being patient and listening to my doctor,” Solomon said. “Unfortunately I couldn’t start training until July, but given my injury history I was willing to take off as long as necessary. Other than that, it was about putting in the miles, doing some strengthening and form building routines and, as much as anything, religious icing twice a day. As for the feeling of finally being back, I almost can’t believe it. I knew I still had the ability to run well, but it was a matter of my body letting me do that. For the first time I almost threw up before a race I was so nervous.”
Another Cardinal making his return from an injury was Mike “Mad Dog” Brady ’07. Brady finished seventh on the team and twenty-ninth overall, with a time of 28:14. With Alex Battaglino ’07 finishing in twenty-fourth place (28:05), each of the top seven runners from Wesleyan finished in the top thirty. The scoring five combined for a score of 50, which put them well ahead of second place Washington & Lee (116), and allowed the Derrty Birds to beat the other 27 teams at the race. Their season record now stands at a perfect 27-0.
“Going into the race, it seemed like almost every team in the NESCAC got some ink, except us,” Solomon said. “I like that though, I like being disrespected and unknown. Maybe my performance was unexpected, but the other performances were par for the course. Clearly a lot of credit goes to Uncle Owie [Kiely] who led the race from the gun, and we got a clutch performance from Sean ”Showtime“ Watson, a froshling who came up big as our fourth man. And that’s the nature of this team, we have ten guys legitimately competing for seven varsity spots, and you’re not knocked out of that seven when you slip up, so much as when somebody else steps up.”
Even more amazing is that the Cardinals pulled off this convincing season-opening victory on a wet and muddy day, without their captain Wes Fuhrman ’05. The usual late-season peaking under Coach Crooke’s method, coupled with the eventual return of Fuhrman truly makes the Derrty Birds a scary team this fall.
The women Cardinals are putting fear into the competition this year as well. With two of their top runners sitting out the season’s first race, they finished a lofty third out of 22 teams. They were paced by Courtney Quirin ’05, who finished second out of the 240 entrants in the 5,000-meter race with a time of 19:04. A surprise for the Cards was Delia Springstubb ’08, who finished 12th (20:30) in her first college race.
“The conditions were crazy, but it was a fun and exciting first college race for me,” Springstubb said. “I was happy with my time, and the team did really well considering two of the top runners weren’t running.”
Megan Wise ’05 placed seventeenth (20:46), Erin Smith ’06 came in at number 28 (21:03), and Carrie Vaudreuil ’05 rounded out the scoring five with a fifty-fourth place finish (21:52).
The next event for both the men and women is Saturday’s meet at 1 p.m. against Colby and Bowdoin at Colby.
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