W. cross country second at H-Y-P meet, Kroshus third overall

The women's cross country team finished second last weekend at the annual Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet in Cambridge, Mass. The Tigers came home with 41 points, while the host Crimson had 35 and Yale repeated as champion with 53 points.

The Tigers' top finisher was once again junior Emily Kroshus, who continues to be a consistent point-scorer for Princeton.

Kroshus has been the top Tiger finisher in nearly all of the cross-country events for the last several seasons. At the H-Y-P meet she finished third with a time of 18 minutes, 37.2 seconds.

Coming in second for the Tigers was Laura Petrillo in eighth place overall, an exceptional individual performance.

Petrillo crossed the finish line at 19:05.6, and was at the head of a large pack of Tiger runners.

"I was really happy with how I ran," Petrillo said.

"But even happier that right with me were four more Princeton girls, right in a row. [Freshmen] Cack Ferrell and Laura Shackelton had exceptional performances, and Emily Kroshus, [senior] Sarah Rivlin and [junior] Pilar Marin continued their consistently great efforts."

The next seven Princeton runners all finished within roughly thirty seconds of each other. Rivlin placed just behind Petrillo in ninth place, with a time of 19:06.4.

Next were Ferrell and Marin in tenth and 11th places.

They finished fewer than seven seconds apart, at 19:10.9 and 19:16.3, respectively. Shackelton crossed the finish line scant tenths of seconds after Marin, finishing in 12th place in 19:16.8.

Coming in at 15th and 16th place were sophomore Randy Buzzell and senior Becca Snyder.

Buzzell's time was 19:25.6, while Snyder crossed the finish time at virtually the same time, at 19:25.7. Junior Krystel Adler placed seventeenth, finishing in 19:37.7.

Reflection

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The Yale-Princeton result mirrors the event's result from last year, albeit with a narrower margin of victory for all parties.

Last year Yale was much further ahead, while Harvard's margin of defeat was much greater. Competition in the Ivy League has grown tighter, with more than four teams ranked nationally.

"The team as a whole did well," Petrillo said.

"But of course our goal is to win, and we did not beat Yale. However, the meet showed yet again the depth of our pack, and gave us inspiration to work harder for [the Heptagonal Championships.]

"We were much closer to Yale then we have been in the last few years, and I think we gave them reason to worry about us later in the season."

Interestingly, last year's H-Y-P meet had exactly the same 1-2-3 individual finish as well, with Kroshus finishing in third behind Yale's Kate O'Neil and her sister, also at Yale, Laura O'Neil.

Princeton's depth has been its most noticeable improvement over recent years.

In all three of its meets so far in 2002 the Tigers have crossed the finish line en masse.

"The HYP is an important traditional meet for us, and it was frustrating to come home without the trophy after such a close match," Petrillo said.

"But we still have time to get ready for bigger meets down the road, and if everyone runs to their potential, the talent, depth and spirit is there for Princeton cross country women to do great things."