Men's, women's cross country disappointed with recent runs

Though it wasn't exactly a dark and stormy night, Princeton's cross country team faced conditions that would most aptly be described as a dark and cold and windy and not-so-nice day.

Despite the adverse conditions, junior Cack Ferrell managed to continue her streak of impressive performances with a tenth-place finish (20:52) over the six-kilometer course at the NCAA Pre-National Invitational meet, held at Indiana State University in Terra Haute, Indiana.

The women's cross country team finished seventh overall, behind several cross country powerhouses, such as Stanford and Notre Dame.

Meanwhile, the men's team found itself blown off course by the stiff and cold winds. The Tigers finished a disappointing 20th at the same meet. Senior Austin Smith led the men with a 25th-place finish (24:32) over the slightly longer 8k course.

"We had an off day [on Saturday]," Smith said. "It was rough."

Yale (17th place) finished three spots ahead of Princeton, outdistancing the Tigers by 34 points. Brown also edged Princeton's men by 25 points, finishing two spots ahead of the Tigers in 18th place.

In the extremely large men's and women's races, each with over two hundred runners, small time differences between teams are magnified by the increased number of participants. The Ivy League Heptagonal Championships will be quite different without all the extra teams. Points are assigned based on a runner's finishing position. Fewer runners will result in smaller discrepancies between similarly performing squads.

"It's a completely different type of racing situation than we're used to," Smith said.

The Lady Tigers finished four places and 64 points ahead of Ivy League rival Columbia, with Yale not much farther behind in 16th place.

"The overall finish of seventh was a solid finish and bodes well for an appearance at NCAA Nationals back in Indiana on the 22nd," Ferrell said. "The team did not have a concrete goal for how we wanted to finish in terms of place, but given that we were sixth at this meet last year, seventh was a respectable performance."

Ferrell noted that most of Princeton's runners were somewhat disappointed with the races they had run. She attributed it to the extra 1000 meters in the race — all the women's races up to this point have been 5k races.

"Many people gave up places in the last 1000 meters," Ferrell observed.

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Smith also elaborated on the men's team's difficulties in the race, but still found a silver lining in the meet.

"The conditions [on Saturday] were far worse than anything we'd seen so far this year," Smith said. "[But] this is the one race we have where we can afford to break ourselves into the hard conditions."

Both cross country squads also sent runners to Lafayette for the Leopard Invitational, tying Columbia for first place with 29 points.

Sophomore Claire Filloux led the Tigers with a second-place finish (21:10) over the 5.8k course.

Meanwhile, freshman James O'Toole led the men's team at Lafayette with a second-place finish (26:14) on the men's five-mile course. The men finished second in the meet. Columbia took the win.

Both Princeton's men and women will look to win their respective Ivy League Heptagonals races less than two weeks from now. The race will be held in the Bronx, NY.

Despite the less-than-ideal conditions, both teams expect their performance to improve as they begin to taper off their training in preparation for the upcoming series of championship meets.

As their sore muscles begin to heal, the Tigers may still see the sun shine on their seasons.