Heptagonal champ Dartmouth, Navy bury men's cross country

From the moment the men's cross-country team lost to rival Dartmouth last year at the Heptagonal championships, its primary goal was to be first place in this year's race.

It is no wonder, therefore, that, in the words of the team's second runner, junior Jon Bell, "Finishing third as a team in the Heptagonal Championships (Oct. 26) was a major disappointment."

Dartmouth landed ahead of Princeton with a total of 76 points — 21 points ahead of Princeton's 97. Navy finished in second place, beating out Princeton by a four-point gap.

"The only uplifting thing from the meet," Bell said, "was having three guys make All-Ivy."

In cross country, the top seven runners receive the honor of First Team All-Ivy, and the next seven receive Second Team. Bell, finishing in seventh place overall with a time of 25 minutes, 13.3 seconds, was one of the three, along with senior captain Wes Stockard, who placed first for Princeton and sixth overall with a time of 25:07.2.

The third Tiger to be named All-Ivy was sophomore Ryan Teising. He placed 12th overall with a time of 25:31.8.

"Teising ran a really gutsy race," Bell said of his teammate. "Considering he has had injury trouble since the end of the summer and has been unable to train consistently."

The same goes for sophomore Tristan Colangelo, who finished in 33rd place with a time of 26:08.08. "Tristan ran a gutsy race after taking a lot of time off for injury," Stockard said.

The combination of such strong individual performances with a disappointing team result led Stockard to call Heps "a mixed bag of results."

Cross country is, in the words of head coach Michael Brady, "the quintessential team sport." No matter how well the top runners perform, the success of the team depends on the collective performance of the team as a whole. In other words, the fourthand fifth-place runners are just as important to the end result as the top three runners.

The importance of the four and five spots can be seen in a comparison of Dartmouth and Princeton's individual scores in last Friday's race. Both Princeton's second and third runners finished ahead of Dartmouth's second runner. But, while Dartmouth's four and five runners placed 20th and 24th, Princeton's finished in 33rd and 39th.

The Tigers had a strong showing up front, but, as Bell said, "with continued injury problems and inconsistent four and five guys, it just wasn't going to happen."

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Nevertheless, coach Brady sees his team's performance at Heps as an accomplishment in itself, the manifestation of significant goals that, though perhaps not as tangible, are no less important than a first place victory.

"Obviously, finishing third is disappointing for a program such as ours that has had such a record of success within the Ivy league," Brady admitted. "That being said, I believe in the journey, not just arriving at the destination. With the incredible bad luck we have had with illness and injury, to have finished as well as we have speaks volumes for the athletes who represented us at the championship."

"As next year approaches I think we will have the experience needed to once again chase the championship," Brady predicted.

Before next year, however, the Tigers still have more challenges ahead of them before this season comes to a close. Districts, scheduled for this weekend at Lehigh, will give them a chance to qualify for the national meet.

The top two teams at Districts will proceed to the NCAA Championships. This year, Princeton's division is weak, with only one team in the Top 25. That team, Villanova, is ranked No. 7 in the country and is the favorite going into this Saturday's race. But second place is wide open.

Stockard, Bell, and Teising look to finish in the top 15 at Districts, which would qualify them as individuals should the team not make it. But the whole team, having traveled to Lehigh last Friday to get a feel for the course and after a week of rigorous training, has a real shot at seizing that second-place spot.