M., w. cross-country crush weekend competition

Men's and women's cross country both started their seasons this weekend with a spring in their steps. The men's team took first place in a crowded field at the Spiked Shoe Invitational, and the women showed absolute dominance over instate rival Rutgers, even without the top two Tiger runners.

The men traveled to University Park, Pa., on Saturday, where they showed strong pack running to place all of their top seven runners in the top 30 of a race with 18 teams and over 230 total runners.

Senior Austin Smith showed why he will be a runner to watch this year as he took second place with a time of 25 minutes, 48.97 seconds, less than a second off the overall winner, Macharia Yuot of Widener, on the eight-kilometer course. Just seconds behind Smith was junior Frank Macreery, who finished in fourth place with a time of 25:54.71.

Rounding out the Tigers' top five were sophomore Paul Rosa (13th), freshman Frank Tinney (21nd) and freshman Justin Pines (23rd).

Adding up the places of those five runners gave Princeton a low team score of 63 points, seven fewer than runner-up La Salle, and a solid 39 fewer than third-place Columbia, a key Ivy League rival.

The Tigers' performances were especially impressive given that their race strategy was described beforehand by junior Ben Stern (24th) as, "taking a chill first two miles together, then [seeing] what we can do."

The sound defeat of the Lions was surprising, because Columbia finished second at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships last year while the Tigers only placed fifth. Both Smith and Macreery showed how significantly they improved throughout the offseason, finishing in front of each of Columbia's returning All-Ivy runners - Gerry Groothius and Karl Dusen. Additionally, Princeton managed to slip its seventh runner in front of the Lions' third finisher, an impressive task which highlights how deep this Tiger team is this year.

The strong performances from all of Princeton's harriers were highlighted by a freshman class that seems to have adjusted well to the 8k distance, three kilometers more than in high school. The freshman class lived up to its billing as a particularly strong recruiting class by finishing well immediately. Each of these positive signs should make the Tigers feel good for the two weeks of training before their next meet, the Paul Short Invitational.

The perfect race

The No. 8 women's team accomplished one of the rarest feats in sports when they hosted their dual meet against Rutgers, achieving not only a perfect 15 for placing in the No. 1 through 5 spots, but also taking the No. 6 and 7 positions to give Rutgers the lowest possible dual meet score of 50.

With juniors Cack Ferrell and Meredith Lambert sitting out the race to train, sophomore Mia Swenson led the Tigers with a time of 18:26 for her first-ever win on the college level. She was followed by seniors Randy Buzzell and Marian Birhle, sophomores Claire Filloux and Catha Mullen, senior Carrie Strickland and junior Suzanne Andrews. The entire top seven finished in under 19 minutes for the 5k Princeton Battlefield course.

In her first collegiate competition, the top freshman runner for Princeton was Caitlyn McTague, who finished in 14th place with a time of 19:33. Though they form the future of the program, members of the class of 2008 are not expected to be seen near the front of the Tigers' pack this year.

Princeton will take the next two weeks to continue training before heading north to compete in the Griak Invitational in Minnesota.