When the Tigers slogged through water up to their knees on Saturday, they didn’t have personal bests on their minds. They were driven by the hunger to beat some of the top teams in the country.
The No. 4 women’s cross country team claimed second at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional at the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore, automatically qualifying for the NCAA Championships. The men’s team finished sixth after its top runner, sophomore Brian Leung, suffered a race-ending injury, marking the end of the season for the team.
The women edged out No. 7 West Virginia, securing one of two automatic spots at nationals. Villanova finished first in dominant fashion, putting four scorers ahead of Princeton’s first.
Senior co-captain Liz Costello led the Tigers in the six-kilometer race with a time of 20 minutes, 53 seconds, earning her a seventh-place finish. Sophomore Alex Banfich, junior Sarah Cummings, junior Ashley Higginson and senior co-captain Reilly Kiernan all crossed the finish line by 21:44, placing all five of Princeton’s scoring runners in the top 25. Kiernan is also an associate news editor for The Daily Princetonian.
The men’s team’s hopes for a championship bid were dashed when Leung became injured and couldn’t finish the race. Leung has consistently led the Princeton runners this season and placed ninth overall last season — a finish that earned him a trip to nationals.
“I slipped on a particularly muddy part of the course, and my left hand got spiked by another runner while I was down,” Leung said. “Ironically, that runner was [junior captain Rob Speare]. No hard feelings, of course. When I got up, I contemplated continuing the race and ran a couple of steps but stopped when I found that I was losing a lot of blood.”
This year, Speare qualified automatically as an individual for nationals, as he ran a spectacular race and finished 12th overall. Sophomore Donn Cabral was the second scorer for the Tigers, finishing 14th overall. Junior Mark Amirault, sophomore Sean Wilson, freshman James Webb and sophomore Joe Stilin also scored for the Tigers.
“While our overall result wasn’t what we’d hoped, we had some great individual results,” men’s head coach Steve Dolan said.
Though the women also felt as though the team didn’t do extraordinarily well, they will have a chance to prove their worth at nationals on Nov. 23.
“In general, we didn’t have a fantastic day, but even on an off day, it’s good to know that we can do what we need to do,” Kiernan said.
Since the women very likely would have received an at-large bid to nationals even if they hadn’t gotten a top-two finish at regionals, they said they felt less pressure Saturday.
“We were happy to have earned the automatic bid to NCAAs because we defended our seeding going into the meet,” Costello said. “It showed that we were not resting on our laurels or our at-large points from the season.”
The race was especially difficult because of the recent rain.
“The course was in absolutely terrible shape,” Kiernan said. “It was basically liquid. There was standing water, and there was even this one part where we were in above-knee-deep water for 20 meters.”
This complicated the race because the Princeton runners had very little idea of timing.
“The course was such a muddy mess that it was impossible for our coach to give us any splits to hit,” Costello said. “The plan was just to handle business as usual and try not to get injured. Balancing was a challenge with such terrible footing due to the loss of traction from the mud. Trudging through the mud also fatigues your muscles more quickly, adding another element of difficulty.”
The Tigers plan to run differently when they compete on the national stage.
“Our pack was not positioned as tightly as it will need to be at nationals to place highly,” Costello said.
Kiernan voiced a similar opinion.
“I think a lot of us would like to see a nationals performance where we can compete with ‘Nova a little more,” she added.
On the men’s side, Princeton’s hopes to go to nationals next year remain strong, as the team will return all of its top runners.
Overall, the Tigers’ expectations for the race were well founded.
“We were expecting a crazy race … to get in there and have a little mudfight,” Kiernan said.
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