The men and women’s cross country teams traveled to Boston, Mass. this weekend to compete at the 2010 New England Intercollegiate Championships. The race was held at Franklin Park with over 300 participants from Division I and III schools. Both teams placed 26th out of the 47 teams competing in each gender and placed seventh out of the eleven NESCAC schools.
Saturday’s weather provided the optimal conditions for running in contrast to the hot, draining weather the Cardinals ran in at their home invitational two weekends ago. The course at Franklin Park is known to be a fast course—it is not very hilly and has solid footing which was also a plus for the race.
Dartmouth ultimately won the meet on the men’s side, while Boston College championed on the women’s side.
Other than the school name on the uniform, there were no noticeable differences between Division I and III athletes.
“When we were running, I saw a guy in a UConn jersey,” said runner Matthew Katz ’11. “That was awesome. They’re a big school and we’re running with them.”
On the men’s side, Skyler Cummins ’13 came in 63rd out of a total of 318 runners with a time of 25:50. Katz was 80th finishing only ten seconds after Cummins (26:00); Jamie Lawrence ’12 came in 117th with a time of 26:19, Brian Marsh ’13 came in 144th with a time of 26:33; Julian Applebaum ’13 slipped into the fifth scoring slot at 198th with a time of 27:06.
The men switched up their top five runners, running without Charlie Lang ’11, who was out this meet after taking a bad fall at practice. The men still were a strong force this weekend among the NESCAC schools, showing great potential to be in the mix for nationals.
For the women, Julia Mark ’13 continued as the Cardinals’ top scorer coming in 58th out of 322 runners with a time of 18:52. Libby Lazare ’14 finished 146th with a time of 19:43; Julie Platt ’12 came in 160th at 19:54,;Jess Levin ’11 was 164th, four seconds after Platt (19:58); Nellie Triedman ’13 took the fifth slot of Cardinal scorers, coming in 168th at 20:00.
This meet kicked off the more intensive part of the cross country season with many participants and plenty of commotion. It served as a reminder of the goals the runners have been working toward since late August.
“Everyone has to prove themselves, no matter what division they are in,” Mark said.
Although the women’s side had mixed reviews on the race, there should still be enough time in the season to readjust their race strategy to be in the best position possible in November.
“The goal is to achieve the balance,” Mark said. “You want to train hard, but not too hard. You want to have mental strength, but you don’t want to get caught up in your thoughts. Sometimes you just have to let go and take a risk.”
The Cardinal XC team will face its biggest rivals in the ‘CAC, Willams and Amherst, Saturday Oct. 23 on the Wes Fuhrman Trails, where Wes will host the Little Three Meet. Since each team can only take twelve runners to NESCACs and seven runners to Regionals, this will be the last race in the 2010 season for many of the runners. Nevertheless, the Cardinals will look to keep up their training to put up a fight in two weeks.
“The Little Three is tough,” Katz said. “Williams has dominated forever. We definitely want to knock off Amherst, and we have the home course advantage.”
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