Harriers look for new leaders

With the official inauguration of Princeton's brand-new home course at West Windsor Fields and a strong debut at the Princeton Invitational this past weekend, the men's and women's cross country teams enthusiastically look forward to a fresh new season.

Even with the graduation of a number of the team's fastest runners, including last year's star Frank Macreery, both teams finished strong this past weekend, with the men's team placing second and the women's team taking home the title. The secret for both teams' success can be attributed to past years veterans who have returned to the team.

The men's team saw a strong group of key runners return to the field this season.

"We have many experienced junior and sophomore contributors this year which will help a lot," assistant coach Steve Dolan said. "Last year we had a lot of freshmen and sophomores who were key to our success. They have had a year to train and we are no longer as young a team as we were last year."

Leading the team this year is highly motivated senior captain Paul Rosa. With past years of varsity experience, he takes on the challenge of leading the Tigers to defeat last year's Heptagonal champion, Dartmouth, for the 2006 title.

Helping him is fellow senior Eric Beights, who has also been an Ivy League scorer in the past and a strong athlete in both cross country and track and field.

Princeton also saw junior Dave Nightingale return to the field, one of the strongest runners of the past season. The junior was one of two Princeton male individual NCAA qualifiers in cross-country last season due to his strong performance at regionals.

Fellow junior Frank Tinney is also destined to capture the spotlight this season. Tinney had a strong track season last year, placing in both the 5000m and 10000m at the 2006 Ivy League Championships. Other veteran juniors returning to the field include Robert Grote, James O'Toole and Tim O'Neill, all of whom are strong prospects this coming year.

Rounding out the roster of star runners is sophomore Michael Maag, the key freshman runner during the 2005 season.

Maag, who qualified for the Regional 5000m, was the third runner at the regional meet last year as a freshman. After the collegiate season, the freshmen ran individually at the Junior Championships, placing tenth, and continued on to represent the US at an international meet.

Following Maag's footsteps as the star freshman is Ben Sitler, who has already established himself as one of the most accomplished high school runners to come not only to Princeton, but to the Ivy League, in recent years. The freshman finished 7th last year at the Footlocker Nationals.

With this core group of runners, the Tigers look optimistically toward the rest of the season.

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"Our team is among the elite on the east coast. Perennial rivals like Dartmouth, Georgetown, Iona and American will find that we are fitter, stronger and deeper than they remember," Beights said. "This [past weekend] was a great test of fitness for each man and an opportunity to practice planning and executing strategy...we were pleased with our collective effort and are excited for the hard yards ahead."

Even with the loss of Macreery, the men's team is not only looking forward to contesting Dartmouth for the Ivy League title, but also qualifying for nationals as a team, where they were just short of the top two spots last year.

The women's team is facing a similar situation to the men's.

With the loss of perennial All-American athlete Cack Ferrell to graduation, it seemed that the Tigers would struggle to fill the ranks. With their outstanding win this past weekend, however, Princeton seems full of veteran and new talent and ready to face future challenges.

"Losing Cack, our number one girl and consistent all-American through her last three years of college, is quite a blow," senior captain Catherine Mullen said. "But with our extraordinary depth this year, it should not be something that we cannot recover from."

Returning from last year's successful varsity squad is Mullen and senior Mia Swenson, last year's number two and three runners, both of whom helped lead the Tigers to victory last weekend. Also returning are senior Caroline Mullen, junior Katie Gose, and sophomore Jolee VanLeuven, last year's fourth spot runner.

Most surprisginly, however, this season is the strength of the freshmen class, who were the key contributors to the win over national competitor Iona and regional rival Villanova at the Princeton Invitational. The top three places for the team were freshmen – Alexa Glencer, Liz Costello, and Christy Johnson.

With this extreme amount of depth, the team hopes to win the Heptagonal Championships in October and qualify for the NCAA Championships in November. Though these goals do not come easily, the Tigers remain optimistic.

"Our pack this year has much more depth and we will be focusing on group running," Caroline Mullen said. "This weekend's race set the tone for what we want to accomplish as a group, for the spread between the first and tenth runner was less than a minute - remarkably close for a cross country team. At our next meet, Harvard Yale Princeton, we hope to lessen that spread."

The Tiger's next meet will take place in Boston and will mark the first pairing against Ivy League rivals. This competition, along with the debut of several absent athletes at the Princeton Invitational, will act as a stronger indicator for what is to come later on this season.