Women's cross country finishes sixth at Districts; Kroshus reaches NCAAs

Women's cross country wanted to prove a few things this year.

They wanted to prove they were top three in their league, but came in sixth at Heptagonals.

Then, they wanted to prove they deserved to go to nationals at Saturday's NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional, held at Lehigh, and, again, came in sixth with 157 points — far away from qualifying for nationals.

So, while the Tigers have improved since last year, they didn't meet all of their goals.

"Certainly the program made a step in the right direction [this season] — we just didn't quite maximize our potential," head coach Peter Farrell said. "[We had] better results than last year; a couple of twists and turns at the end cost us more success."

Princeton might have been a long shot to earn a team berth to nationals — the Tigers would have needed to finish first or second at regionals to get an automatic bid, which is hard to do when No. 3 Georgetown and No. 21 Villanova are in the same region. But the team might have finished higher than sixth if it weren't for a few of those "twists and turns" — illness, injury, and poor performance.

However, Princeton will be represented at Monday's national meet at Furman. Sophomore Emily Kroshus ran to a sixth-place finish on Saturday (21 minutes, 3.84 seconds) and earned an automatic individual bid.

After Kroshus, Princeton's normal order of finish was shaken up a bit as senior Emily Eynon, in 19th place (21 minutes, 37.5 seconds), was the second finisher. Senior Catherine Casey, this season's usual No. 2 runner, was weakened by illness, and finished 27th at 21:53.4.

"Casey got a virus and was incapacitated," Farrell said. "She wasn't up to 100 percent, so she dropped from where she would've been — not that far behind Kroshus — to 27th."

Senior Holly Huffman, in 47th place, and junior Sarah Rivlin, in 58th, completed the Tigers' top five.

"We didn't get that much help from the back," Farrell said, pointing out that Casey was not the only weakened runner — sophomore Rebecca Snyder, who finished 62nd, had aggravated her back at Heps a week earlier.

Overall, Farrell characterized the meet as "somewhat disappointing."

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For Kroshus, though, it was, as she put it, "my best race of the season to date."

"I'm not a hill runner, and this course was relatively flat, which suited me well," she said. "I ran in the front pack for the first two miles, then we reached the biggest incline of the race, and the Georgetown pack and a few other girls picked up the pace."

The meet was dominated by Georgetown as the Hoyas took first through fourth places and finished with only 22 points; Villanova was second with 69 points.

Despite a "lapse of concentration" in the middle of the race, Kroshus was able to catch up in the last mile and secure both a strong finish and a trip to South Carolina.

The Tigers will run their final meet of the season Nov. 17 when the JV squad returns to Van Cortlandt for the ECAC championships.