The men’s cross country roster looks like it belongs to a team in a “rebuilding year.” Sixteen runners are underclassmen and nine are juniors; only four are seniors. No matter how talented, a small eldest class can harm a team.
Yet this weekend, Princeton’s men will journey to Terre Haute, Ind., for the NCAA national championship Monday, following their victory at the regional meet last weekend. They’ll be joined by the women’s squad, which qualified for nationals after placing fourth at regionals.
This has been the men’s most successful season in recent memory. Last year, Princeton sent a single runner to nationals after placing sixth at the regional meet. The 2009 season had its highlights — a second-place finish at the Heptagonal Championships and first place at the Cappy Anderson Invitational — but they pale in comparison to the team’s performance this year.
Princeton’s victory at regionals has been only the most recent of its many accomplishments. The Tigers opened their season with a win in September at the Spiked Shoe Invitational. Less than a month later, Princeton’s younger runners took first place at the Paul Short Invitational while older competitors took third at the Wisconsin Adidas Invitational. The men placed fifth in last month’s Pre-Nationals Meet and claimed the Ivy League title at Heps.
Princeton’s performance has only added to the team’s resolve.
“This year we’re at the point where we all know that our program should be considered one of the top programs in the nation, and we’re starting to take that confidence into our races,” junior captain Donn Cabral said.
But Cabral realizes that the team still needs to be cautious with this momentum.
“At nationals, the hardest thing will be for our guys to make it through the weekend’s banquets and festivities without getting psyched out by all the hype surrounding the meet,” Cabral said. “It’s easy to get caught up in everything.”
Junior Brian Leung said the squad’s championship goal has been long in the making.
“I distinctly remember getting all of my classmates together freshman year and laying out our goals for our four years that we’d have together at Princeton,” Leung explained. “The most constant dream that all of us shared was getting the team to nationals and establishing ourselves as the premier distance running program on the East Coast.”
Later that year, Leung ran in the NCAA championships as a freshman. In 2008, however, the Tigers only sent two runners to Terre Haute. This year, Princeton will travel as a team.
“The team is just so close this year — I know I can depend on every single one of my teammates to never give an inch,” Leung said. “This confidence that we have in each other is a large part of why we’re so dangerous now.”
Despite this confidence, Leung said the team’s trip to Indiana will be considered success regardless of its performance at the meet.
“We’ve been waiting so long for this breakthrough season and no matter how Monday goes, I couldn’t be prouder of this team.”
The Princeton women face a different set of challenges than the men as they enter the final meet of the postseason. While the men’s team fought to make a name for themselves this season, the women sought to maintain their success from last year. In the volatile world of distance running, that can be a tall order.
The cross country schedule is sparse, and every meet is vital to a team’s national ranking. Illness, injury and dumb luck can make or break a team. For this reason, junior Alex Banfich said she is confident that the Tigers will outperform their No. 19 ranking at nationals.
“We have yet to have a race where everyone has been healthy and on the same page on the same day,” Banfich said. “We’ve been looking great in practice, so it’s time to finally prove that we’re better than our ranking.”
History supports Banfich’s optimism. Last year Princeton finished fifth in the national championships, and the team only lost three runners to graduation. Banfich, however, noted that because lineups are always different, it’s difficult to look to previous seasons for advice.
“It doesn’t really help to compare year to year,” Banfich explained. “Each season, people graduate and matriculate, and as a result, goals adjust.”
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