The skeleton of a great cross country team was already in place with seniors Tensai Asfaw, Pat Anglin and junior Wes Stockard returning from last year's team, which finished tied for 19th at the NCAA championships. But even after a summer of hard training, Princeton has been ranked consistently lower than expected in national polls. Young blood turned out to be the key — allowing the team to prove itself at a national level. That infusion kicked in last weekend, namely in the form of freshmen Tristan Colangelo and Ryan Teising at the Iona Invitational Meet of Champions.
The team had a breakthrough performance, finishing third in the 23-team field behind only Iona and William and Mary, who are ranked No. 6 and No. 13 in the country, respectively. Princeton was within 19 points of the winners, but outscored the fourth place team by 56 points. Senior Tensai Asfaw set the pace for the team for the second consecutive week, finishing eighth with a time of 24 minutes, 51 seconds in the 8K race.
Recharging
But it was the freshmen who provided the unexpected energy needed to get the Tigers in contention for the meet. Colangelo, who was the No. 5 runner for the team last week in the Princeton Invitational, turned in the No. 2 performance and finished 17th overall in the meet.
"I feel like I'm finally getting used to everything," Colangelo said. "I tried to move up with the seniors and that really helped me out."
After competing in the JV race last weekend, Teising moved up for his first varsity race and finished as the fourth Tiger to come in among the top 20 racers in the 240-person field.
"We had some gaps and [the freshmen] jumped in there and did it," Stockard, who finished third for the team, said. "The fact that we're not doing well in the polls really lit a fire underneath us. This was a great breakthrough race."
Head coach Mike Brady sees this as just one step in the right direction for a team with the potential to win nationals.
"We've got two of the best freshmen runners in the country," Brady said. "All these guys are out there paying the price everyday and they're going to get it done."
The women's team is finding a different way of getting it done. The Tigers rested six of their top runners this week to get ready for the Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet next weekend.
"The girls who didn't run are still doing the same cycle in practice," head coach Peter Farrell said. "They put out a hard effort there, it's just less stressful."
Despite the absence of these runners, the team still finished 13th in a 20-team field. Freshman Rebecca Snyder led the way with a 58th-place finish in the 6K race — a change from the usual 5K distance.
Strong pace
Freshman Katie Reid felt that the team handled the distance change well, for the most part maintaining its usual 5K pace.
"We really wanted to attack this distance and try to reduce the time between the top runner and the last runner," said Reid, who finished fifth for the Tigers. Senior Kristi Rosso, junior Mattie Godzala and freshman Joan Krautman also finished in the top five for Princeton.
The full squad will be back in action at Harvard next weekend for the H-Y-P meet while the men will take the weekend off, returning to action Oct. 14 at the Lafayette Invitational.
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