The Wesleyan men and women’s Cross Country teams finished 9th and 8th, respectively, out of 11 teams at the NESCAC Championship Saturday, running through muddy conditions in Wiliamstown, Mass. The poor showing continued a string of disappointing finishes for the Cards.
Sean Watson ’08, captain of the men’s squad, noted afterwards that he was “surprised” by Saturday’s results, and said that the team “has a lot of talent, we’re just not putting it together.”
On Saturday, Little Three rivals Amherst and Williams traded wins at the top of the leader boards, with Amherst winning the women’s bracket and Williams the men’s. Wesleyan, meanwhile, finished far behind.
“It’s disappointing,” Watson said of Saturday, and added, with a small smile: “I sucked.”
To his credit, Watson did place first among the University men and 19th overall. Still, he regards the race as a “forgettable” one.
“There were no real surprises,” agreed Dave Tassone ’08, who injured his foot in the Little Three meet last week and is likely out for the rest of the season.
Many of the other squads at the meet relied heavily on underclassmen runners such as Hamilton’s Peter Kosgei who lived up to the hype, running the 8k course in 25:52. He finished a full half-minute ahead of the next closest runner.
“Ideally, you don’t want to have to rely on freshmen,” Watson said regarding the lack of upperclassmen competitors. “It makes [racing] a lot tougher.”
However, the Cards couldn’t take advantage of upperclassmen experience during this weekend’s horrible conditions.
Charlie Lang ’11 tamed the storm for the Cardinals and ran what Watson described as his “breakout” race Saturday, finishing 4th among Cardinal men.
Dan “Thunder” Hymanson ’11 also ran well, especially since he is coming off of an injury.
Rounding out Wesleyan’s top finishers was Jonah Blumstein ’09, who finished 33rd of the 127 runners. Watson described him as a crucial, consistent runner, particularly praising his performance in the tough middle miles of Saturday’s race.
Overall, though, the gap between Wesleyan’s scoring five was too great. The miserable conditions made running as a pack nearly impossible.
The women’s race also finished spread out. Among the race’s top ten overall finishers, there was a gap of almost a full minute.
The first to cross the line for the Cards was Ravenna Neville ’10, coming in a strong 25th out of 122 runners in the 6k. Lucia Pier ’08, co-captain of the women’s team, was quick to praise Neville.
“[Neville] ran an outstanding and gutsy race,” Pier said, who herself finished just three spots behind Neville for 28th place.
Pier put the team’s results in context.
“NESCAC is one of the (if not the) toughest conferences in the country, let alone the region,” she said. “[Other NESCAC teams] have at least twice as many runners as [we do]. We have to rely on everybody we have out there.”
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