Inter-Regional Meet Brings Success for Cross Country

Both the men’s and women’s cross country teams competed in the Princeton Inter-Regional Meet this past weekend, hosted on West Windsor Fields on Saturday. The men’s team was coming off a three-week break after a fantastic victory at the Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet hosted in Cambridge where they beat perennial rivals Harvard and Yale to first place. The women’s team had themselves a two-week break after finishing second in the HYP and coming third in the Iona Meet in New York.

With such strong performances, both teams looked to capture the Inter-Regional Meet title and continue their great season.

Coming into the Inter-Regional Meet, the men’s cross country team was unranked but competed in a field against No. 19 Indiana, No. 24 Providence and No. 29 North Carolina, so if the team impressed, the Tigers could see themselves in the NCAA rankings. The team did not disappoint, finishing second in the tournament with an impressive 70 points, which was only bested by Indiana’s 47 points.

Impressing on the day for the Tigers was freshman and California native Steven Sum, who finished sixth in the 8K event, crossing the finish line in 24 minutes and 12 seconds. He was closely followed by senior Michael Sublette and sophomore Noah Kauppila, who came within five seconds of Sum’s finish to claim 8th and 11th places, respectively. Rounding out the top five for the Tigers was senior Sam Berger who came in 21st and freshman Jeremy Spiezio who came in three spots behind Berger.

With this impressive performance, the Tigers recently placed 27th in the NCAA rankings with 38 points. The weekend’s winner Indiana jumped three places in the rankings to 16th, but Providence and North Carolina both dropped out of the top 30, with neither teams garnering any votes.

The women’s team fared even better than the men’s team in its own meet, as they won the event. The Tigers, ranked 28th in the nation, showed that they were a force to be reckoned with as they faced a host of top teams, including No. 18 William & Mary, No. 21 North Carolina and No. 25 Villanova.

Junior Lizzie Bird led the charge for the Tigers, storming out to an impressive 3rd place finish, followed by seniors Emily de la Bruyere and Kathryn Fluehr. Bird finished in 20 minutes and 42 seconds, followed by de la Bruyere’s finish nine seconds later, and Fluehr finished in 21 minutes and 6 seconds. Rounding out the scoring and top five for Princeton were juniors Ally Markovich, who finished 19th, and Nicole Marvin, who finished 48th. These top five finishes gave the Tigers the victory at 80 points, beating North Carolina by 10 points.

This victory saw the women’s cross country team move up three spots in the rankings to the 25th place. The Tigers currently have 94 points and are only one behind both William & Mary and Minnesota, so an impressive performance in future meets will see them move up the rankings.

Both the men’s and women’s cross country teams will compete at the Wisconsin Invitational on Friday, Oct. 16 and the Princeton Invitational on Saturday, Oct. 17. The teams’ top runners will travel to Wisconsin, while the rest of the team will stay in Princeton to compete.