W. cross country qualifies for NCAA Championships

The women's cross country team achieved a season-long goal this past Saturday, as its second place finish in the Mid-Atlantic NCAA Regional meet in Lock Haven, Pa., qualified the entire team for the NCAA Championship. The men, despite a top 10 finish from senior Tristan Colangelo, were not so lucky, as they finished in third, just shy of qualifying.

In recent years, the women's team has had several individual qualifiers, but the achievement of bringing the entire team to the national championship has not occurred since 1982, adding yet another accomplishment to what has been an extraordinary season for the Tigers.

The lead runner for Princeton, senior Emily Kroshus, has had an incredible year so far, with four individual victories, including a win at the Heptagonal Championships two weeks ago. She came in a close second at regionals, finishing only four seconds behind Georgetown's Traniere Clement, who had a time of 20 minutes, six seconds on the 6000-meter course.

Dynamic duo

Supporting Kroshus, as has been the case all season, was sophomore Cack Ferrell, who finished in fifth place.

"We like to start off together," Kroshus said. "And Cack and I led together pretty much the whole way."

Unfortunately, the Tigers' hopes for a team win were dashed almost from the moment the starters' gun fired, as the bottom five runners had a difficult time getting going. The starting line was overly crowded as the field was comprised of 176 runners, and though Kroshus and Ferrell managed to get ahead of the pack, Princeton's last five runners were trapped behind many slower runners, leaving them with a lot of ground to make up on a difficult first mile.

"Some of our girls had a difficult time at the start," Kroshus added, "but everyone really [did] the individual best they could do."

Senior Laura Petrillo, who finished in 21st, junior Carrie Strickland (24), and sophomore Meredith Lambert (26) were able to recover from this rocky beginning to have solid races and round out the scoring for Princeton.

Georgetown, ranked 16th nationally entering the race, took home the team victory, scoring 56 points, to beat second-place Princeton by 22 points. While this was somewhat of an upset, the Tigers still accomplished their goal in finishing as one of the top two teams and earning a spot to the race that really matters — NCAA Championships.

The race for the national title will be held in Waterloo, Iowa, at the home course of Northern Iowa, on Nov. 24. The field will consist of the 18 teams that qualified with a top-two finish in one of the nine regions, as well as 13 additional teams selected at-large, and 38 runners who have qualified individually.

"If everything goes perfectly at nationals, we could get top 10," Kroshus said. "Nonetheless, we've definitely started a legacy this season."

On the bubble

The men's team ran a good race but unfortunately failed to qualify automatically as the women did. The team still had a chance to make it to the finals, and was hopeful of getting one of 13 at-large bids announced yesterday. (At press time, the selections had not yet been announced.)

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Colangelo placed ninth at the regional race, four seconds ahead of junior Austin Smith, who just missed the individual qualifying cutoff with a 13th place finish. Not far behind were sophomore Ben Stern (21), sophomore Frank McCreery (22) and senior Jon Kieliszak (26).

The individual winner of the men's race was Penn State's freshman standout Dan Mazzocco, whose team finished fifth. The two teams qualifying for nationals were No. 16 Villanova, which won the race with 55 points, and No. 9 Georgetown, only two points back with 57.