Tigers successful at Mid-Atlantics and look ahead to NCAAs

The women’s cross country team raced to third place with a score of 80 points last Friday at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional, securing it a bid to the NCAA National Championships this Saturday. The Tigers finished after No. 10-ranked Penn State, who earned 60 points, and only five points behind No. 14 Georgetown, who accumulated a total of 75 points.

Though Temple’s Blanca Fernandez claimed the individual title with her first-place finish with a time of 20:52.0, senior Emily de la Bruyere and junior Lizzie Bird took the second- and third-place positions, with respective times of 20:53.6 and 20:56.9.

Senior Emily de la Bruyere didn’t contain her excitement over her placement in last week’s race. “It was a total surprise. My first reaction and my reaction through the race was ‘What is happening?’” said de la Bruyere. “We went out really slowly and at about one mile to go, Lizzie and I were leading the pack, just waiting for Georgetown and Penn State to swallow us up, and then at one kilometer to go, I thought, ‘Well someone has to go, so it might as well be me.’”

Other Princeton finishers include senior Kathryn Fluehr, junior Ally Markovich, freshman Brighie Leach, senior Kathryn Little and sophomore Melinda Renuart.

De la Bruyere also expressed her pride for her team’s performance. “We did well. One of the great successes for our team this year has been performing consistently, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone performs her best everyday. We have met and exceeded expectations every race, and we did that again. We were projected to finish fourth; we finished third; we secured a bid. It was everything we were supposed to do and the tiniest bit more,” she said.

Lizzie Bird, a junior from the United Kingdom, agreed with her teammate’s assessment of the team’s overall achievement. “We really just did what we needed to do. We came in third, which we knew would get us an at-large bid because we’ve had a consistent season.”

Both Bird and de la Bruyere, two top runners for the Tigers this season, also attribute their success and consistency to the team’s cohesiveness. Bird said, “We’ve been really coherent as a whole. The team dynamic this year is wonderful. I never really understood the whole team spirit idea before I came to the [United] States because at home, cross country is very much an individual sport, but here it’s really about the team. You go to nationals as a team. You can qualify as [an] individual, but that’s not really what it’s about.”

Senior de la Bruyere not only applauds this unmistakable bond, but also the ability of her team to rise about preconceived expectations. “The team right now is the best team dynamic I’ve ever seen. Expectations for us were pretty low. We were not supposed to be this good this year, but [it] clicked and we happened,” she said.

Bird and de la Bruyere have positive thoughts going forward. “Our coach [Peter Farrell] always says we have three goals in the season. One is to win “Heps” [Ivy League Championship], which we did. One is to make nationals, which we’ve done, and the third is to do as well as we possibly can at nationals,” Bird said.

As a senior, de la Bruyere hopes for the younger runners to gain experience. “I’m so glad the team’s made it. We have some younger women on the team, and it’ll be a good experience for them,” de la Bruyere said.

The NCAA National Championships are scheduled to be held at the University of Louisville in Kentucky this Saturday at Tom Sawyer State Park. The race will be broadcast live on NCAA.com.