Men's, women's cross country prepare for Heps over fall break

As clocks shift forward and frost impends, the men's and women's cross country team's will be numb to distractions as they approach the most heated Heptagonal Championship race in recent memory.

Unlike in past years, where the men's team has quite easily dominated the league, the caliber of competition has been raised and four teams have legitimate shots at victory next Friday morning.

The Heptagonal Championships — the conference meet for the Ivy teams plus Navy — are held annually in the extremely challenging urban Van Cortland Park in the Bronx. Unlike most of the races the Tigers have entered this season which are run on rolling terrain, such as golf courses, the Heps course is either pancake flat or roller-coaster hills, culminating with the dreaded Cemetery Hill.

Dartmouth is the defending champion and is led by last year's individual winner, senior All-American Tom McCardle. The high mileage aficionado is at the top of the field once more, coming off a fourth-place individual showing at last week's Pre-National Invitational. Running in second for the Big Green at Pre-Nats and placing 40th individually was Jarrod Shoemaker. The third, fourth and fifth men all came in together in the 70's. To claim the title, Princeton will have to get their fifth runner substantially in front of Dartmouth's fifth to compensate for McCardle's practically guaranteed score of 1.

Finding a consistent fifth runner has been Princeton's Achilles heel all season. While each member of the top seven has proved in some race that they are fit, not often have five individuals performed as needed on a given day.

In Princeton's favor is that 12 individuals can race, unlike the traditional cross-country format of seven. Five still score, but on a team as deep as Princeton, being able to toss into the mix the likes of senior captain Jon Bell and freshmen Frank McCreery, eases a bit of the pressure.

Bell, racing his way into shape after an injury-riddled summer, showed by placing second individually at last weekend's Lehigh Invitational that he may be returning to the form that earned him All-Ivy honors last fall.

Junior Tristan Colangelo's progression this season has been remarkable. Due to injury, he sat out of the first meet of the season. He was relegated to the "B" race at the Paul Short Invitational but has made heady progress since. By placing 38th individually at Pre-Nationals, Colangelo sent a message that with two more weeks of training he should be nipping at McCardle's heels — or at the very least, leading the chase pack. According to junior Jeff Dichiarra, "Tristan is running out of his shoes right now." Dichiarra, a self-professed under-performing potential fifth man for Princeton extends his creative analysis to his own racing of late, which he likens to excrement.

Sophomore Austin Smith has turned in strong and consistent performances all year, starting with his slightly unexpected victory at the Princeton Battlefield in early September. Princeton will need this consistency if it looks to beat not only Dartmouth but fend off legitimate challenges from Navy and Columbia.

By all rational analysis, Princeton is a much stronger team than Columbia. While the Tigers did fall to the Lions at the Paul Short Invitational on September 28th, they were without the services of Colangelo. Although not competing in the same heat at Pre-Nationals, Princeton's 10th place finish in the "Blue" race was comparatively superior to Columbia's 15th place in the "White" race. The light blue are led by junior Steve Sundell, but are severely lacking in depth.

Not to be overlooked either is Navy, who came from relative obscurity last season to sneak ahead of Princeton in the championship race.

"The pack that we have been working on all year needs to show up," men's head cross country coach Mike Brady said. "We need to rise to the occasion that is Heps."

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While the rest of Princeton uses the week to rest and recuperate after midterms, the women's cross country team will be training for the apex of its competitive season, which is also the Heps.

The team has had a decent string of finishes up until this point, and it will be interesting to see if they can turn what have been several individually strong performances into a full-fledged team effort.

Top on the list of Tigers to watch is junior Emily Kroshus. Kroshus has led the team all year, and there is little reason to expect her not to do so again at Heps.

Behind Kroshus are a pack of girls, many of whom have had one or more great races so far this season.

Junior Laura Petrillo has run exceptionally well the last two races, and should likely finish in the top three on the squad. Freshman Meredith Lambert has also had a superb season, especially earlier on. She has the talent to run well, though she lacks the experience of others on the team.

A significant difference between Heps and a normal meet is that all 12 Princeton runners will race, as compared to the usual seven.

"All twelve of the people running in HEPs are in awesome shape," senior and team captain Sarah Rivlin said. "And they all have the potential to score in the top five. It will be really exciting to see how it turns out."

The team has been working hard in preparation of this meet, and the results should show the effort put into it. Normally Heps comes directly after midterms, but this year the Tigers will have the duration of fall break to train and focus.

"As far as the Ivy League competition goes," said Rivlin, "at Pre-Nationals, even though we performed below par, we proved that we can beat Dartmouth and Cornell and that we're right behind Yale. Columbia is the real threat at Heps, not the others."

Having already run against much of the competition they will face, the team should have a mental idea of what they're up against. If they run to their potential, they could emerge from next week's competition as champions.