Cross Country: Cabral, men take 4th at Wisconsin

The Wisconsin adidas Invitational was a race of titans. Making up what was perhaps the deepest and most competitive mid-season meet in recent NCAA history, 21 of the nation’s top 30 cross-country powerhouses toed the line on Friday in Madison, Wis. Effectively a type of pre-nationals, the field was filled with individual and team contenders for the national title in November.

Pushing through the high-powered dogfight, the men’s cross country team made a strong and clear statement to the rest of the country, placing fourth out of 39 teams overall. In this single breakthrough race, No. 14 Princeton defeated many teams that came in with higher rankings, including No. 10 Oregon and No. 7 Indiana.

Leading the Tigers, senior co-captains Donn Cabral and Brian Leung ran out behind the top pack, taking shelter from the winds that buffeted the eight-kilometer course.

“The course was great … There were only a few wet spots, but nothing to really slow it down that much,” Cabral said. “The wind really got blowing pretty hard, but luckily for most of the race our guys were tucked into the pack, and we didn’t really have to deal with the gusty winds until the last mile or two of the race.”

In contrast to the tactical Notre Dame race two weeks ago, this weekend’s race strung out quickly from the start, with Arizona’s Lawi Lalang taking the pace out fast in 8 minutes, 43 seconds through three kilometers. A chase group composed of several top individuals such as Chris Derrick from Stanford, Miles Batty from Brigham Young, Luke Puskedra of Oregon and Diego Estrada from Northern Arizona consistently trailed Lalang by 10 seconds. Refusing to be gapped, Cabral hung on to the back of this pack for most of the opening kilometers of the race.

As the race progressed, Lalang built up a lead that he never relinquished, finishing in a new meet and course record with a time of 23 minutes, 11 seconds. The real excitement, however, came as the chase pack drove to the finish. Powering up the final hill, Cabral kicked past Derrick and Batty to take fourth overall in 23:31.

“For me, personally, it was a huge step,” Cabral said. “It was a big step beating guys who were many steps ahead of me in high school and also getting a little revenge on Miles Batty of BYU, who outkicked me a few weeks earlier at Notre Dame.”

Not long after Cabral finished, Leung came in second among the Tigers, placing 29th overall with a time of 24:17. The next big breakthrough came 20 seconds later as the last three Tigers of Princeton’s scoring five ran well and packed it in across the finish line, sealing the team’s fourth-place position. Showing composure, senior Peter Maag and sophomores Chris Bendtsen and Tyler Udland stuck together throughout the race and pushed each other up through the field, finishing in 24:35, 24:37 and 24:38 respectively. Princeton’s entire top five placed in the top 70 of the 270-member field.

“Our two captains were able to pull through and ran great races up front as usual, but we also had a pack of four guys that finished within seven seconds of each other,” Bendtsen said. “This definitely helped me get through the tough parts of the race and stay focused. As a team, I feel like we were all just ready to race.”

The men were not the only Tigers running in Wisconsin on Friday. Forty minutes earlier, the women’s cross-country team raced in the women’s championship 6K race. There they faced similarly stiff competition against the nation’s top teams, finishing 25th of 44 schools at the meet.

Pacing the squad, senior captain Alex Banfich ran her own impressive race, taking fourth place in 20:11. In an exciting breakthrough performance, Banfich came in not far behind the 2010 national champion Sheila Reid of Villanova, who won in 20:00.

“I was definitely happy to be feeling comfortable running next to runners of their caliber. I think last year I peaked a bit too early in the season, so this year things feel a little more on schedule,” Banfich said. “This is the time in the season to feel fit and ready to go — championship season, with Heps and nationals, is just around the corner.”

Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Despite Banfich’s solid race, the women’s team as a whole is still looking for better performances on the national scene. Nevertheless, they were still the top Ivy League team in the race, with Columbia the closest competitor in 27th place.

“As far as the team goes, we didn’t have our best day,” Banfich said. “I think this team is just inexperienced and these huge invitationals can just be a bit intimidating — but having had this experience under our belts, Heps will just seem that much more manageable. While we didn’t really accomplish our goal for potentially picking up any at-large points, we’re also better runners for it and I think we still have a very good chance at Heps.”

The day after all the excitement out west in Wisconsin, Princeton once again demonstrated its sheer depth, as more “B” team runners raced in the Princeton Invitational at home.

Headed by sophomores Alejandro Arroyo-Yamin and Jonathan Vitez, the Tigers placed second to a full Cornell team in the men’s 14-team championship race. Arroyo-Yamin placed third in 25:01, while Vitez clocked in three seconds later in 25:04.

Meanwhile, the women’s second team finished fifth out of 11 teams in their race. Freshman Rachel Skokowski led the way over the 6K course, placing 19th in 23:26. Junior Abby Hewitt followed closely in 28th at 23:37.

The Tigers have a little while to soak in their success before they continue to prepare for the Heptagonal Championships at home in two weeks on Oct. 29. There, both the men and women do not expect to have trouble maintaining their reign over the rest of the Ivy League.

“From now until Heps we just need to maintain,” Cabral said. “We just had a very strong showing compared to Columbia — the number two team — and if everything goes as planned, we should be able to win.”