A mediocre 26th place finish by the women’s cross country team at the New England Open on Saturday was offset by the 17:35 finish by Ellen Davis ’07, who finished sixth overall and second among Division III runners. Davis also received All-Northeast honors, an impressive feat considering she was running against a number of Division I teams.
Davis, however, was not the only one to have an excellent individual race.
“There was really beautiful weather, a dry, hard-pact course and a competitive field,” Megan Kretz ’07 said. “Probably 75 percent of our team ran personal records. It was a good day for fast times.”
Of course, prime running conditions meant good times for the other teams as well. Boston University won the 46-team meet with a score of 126. Wesleyan finished with a score of 670 to stand 26th overall and 10th among Division III Northeast region teams. To make nationals, Wesleyan must be in the top five.
“Overall I was pleased,” Head Coach John Crooke said. “There was good effort; the times the team ran were decent for this point in the season. They ran aggressively.”
Solidarity among the scoring five is the team’s primary goal.
“We need runners two through five as close together as possible,” Crooke said. “Of course Ellen is one of the best runners in the country, and she’ll be leading up front in any race, but we want the pack behind her.”
The team’s next contest is the Little Three at Amherst Oct. 21. Wesleyan will be competing against rivals Amherst and Williams, both of whom placed considerably higher than Wesleyan at Saturday’s meet. Team members are confident about a possible second place finish however.
“We have a good shot at beating Amherst if everyone stays healthy and we can get our two, three, four and five runners together,” Kretz said.
Crooke is not so optimistic, citing the higher level of Williams and Amherst.
“I want our team to run up to our potential, but we’re running against something like the number two and number six team in the country,” Crooke said. “As a team, we’re not up to that level.”
Saturday’s top five finishers were Davis (17:35), Lucia Pier ’08 (19:14), Julia Stone ’09 (19:31), Anna Schindler ’09 (20:17) and Hannah Hastings ’08 (20:23).
“We did really well considering there were good Division I schools there,” Stone said. “But we have potential to be more solid.”
Leave a Reply