Women's cross country climbs to 12th against tough field at Pre-NCAA meet

Before any competition, a team sets goals for itself. Going into the NCAA Pre-National Invitational at Furman University on Saturday, the women's cross country team aimed to finish in the Top 20 of a field that included Colorado, the No. 1 team in the nation, and a handful of other top-25 teams.

The Tigers were able to return to New Jersey satisfied, having not just met but exceeded their goal.

With 361 points, Princeton finished 12th out of 34 teams — a field of 229 runners. Sophomore Emily Kroshus led the team, finishing in 17th place with a time of 21:53, followed by senior Catherine Casey in 43rd at 22:16.

Junior Sarah Rivlin and sophomore Pilar Marin also competed, finishing 166th and 218th.

Running in such a large field requires some strategy.

"The start and the first mile were a little crazy," Casey said. "It is a huge pack, and you are surrounded by runners the whole way. We focused on staying in control and running a smart first mile so that we could move up throughout the race."

The Tigers tried to maintain the same pace throughout the six-kilometer race as the pace at which they ran the first mile at last weekend's H-Y-P meet on the 5K Battlefield course.

These strategies seemed to pay off for Princeton.

"For the most part, everyone ran a strong race and finished strong," Casey said.

Rounding out Princeton's top five were senior Emily Eynon in 81st at 22:53, senior Holly Huffman in 92nd at 22:58, and sophomore Rebecca Snyder in 128th at 23:26.

The pre-national meet invites teams from around the nation to get a look at the course that will host the NCAA national meet in November — this year, a hilly 6K traversing the Furman University Golf Course. At the Pre-NCAA meet, the women's teams werre divided into two fields, with top-ranking programs evenly divided between the two.

Princeton was in the Purple race, which gave the Tigers the opportunity to compete against two Ivy League foes. Cornell, ranked No. 20 nationally, finished 8th with 282 points, and Columbia was just ahead of Princeton in 11th place with 335 points. Yale, Dartmouth, and Brown finished 9th, 12th, and 19th, respectively, in the Silver race.

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Head coach Peter Farrell was very satisfied with the team's performance compared with the Ivy League teams but also with top teams from around the country.

"It's really a bringing together of the tribes, with 105 colleges from all over," Farrell said. "This is a nice upturn for our program to go there and hold our own at that level."

Princeton's 12th-place finish set them with the nation's best teams. It put them ahead of No. 8 UNC, which finished 16th, and not far behind No. 17 Boston University, which finished 9th. No. 11 Georgetown took first place.

Focusing on the Ivy League, Farrell noted that "Yale and Cornell had impressive performances, but they're not out of reach, and we matched up extremely well with Dartmouth, Columbia, and Brown."

The Tigers now shift their focus to the Heptagonal championships Oct. 26, where they will compete against the other Ivy League schools and Navy. The team's strong performance at this weekend's meet provided motivation and encouragement for the runners.

"This weekend really gave us a lot of confidence going into Heps," Casey said. "Columbia and Cornell beat us in our division, but we weren't far behind. We feel that we'll be ready for them in two weeks."

Also on Saturday, another group of Princeton runners competed in the Leopard Invitational at Lafayette College, where they finished third after Penn and Columbia. Freshman Catherine Peff had the best team finish, coming in 6th.