Cross Country: Men’s team places 3rd at Notre Dame

This past weekend saw the men’s and women’s cross country teams face their first true challenges of the season. With their past races only including an easy win at the Fordham Fiasco and a destruction at the women’s annual Harvard-Yale meet, both Tiger squads were looking forward to seeing how well they stacked up against other nationally ranked teams at this early point in the season at the prestigious Notre Dame Invitational in South Bend, Ind.

By the time the gun went off for the highlighted men’s 8K race at 5 p.m. on Friday, conditions on the cross-country course were far from ideal. Soft and wet spots along the route, as well as gusts of wind approaching 40 mph, plagued the entire field throughout the race, resulting in slower times. Despite the adverse weather, the Tigers showed their grit and managed to put their five scoring runners in the top 50. In the team standings, Princeton took third place overall, one spot ahead of Stanford — which is ranked third in the nation.

“We’ve had some workouts in wind and rain, as well as under hot sun this season, as I’m sure other teams have. We were prepared for what we were going to face and did a great job handling the conditions,” senior co-captain Donn Cabral said.

Leading the Princeton pack, Cabral and senior co-captain Brian Leung went out aggressively with the lead group to avoid the opening bottleneck of the course before settling into a very conservative pace as the top runners bunched up and the race turned tactical. At the end, Cabral nearly won but was outkicked down the home straight, 23 minutes, 59 seconds to 24:00, by the 2011 NCAA indoor mile champion, Miles Batty of Brigham Young University. Leung came home next in 14th place. Senior Peter Magg also had a very impressive individual performance, stepping up to break into the Tigers’ top five for the first time ever. Maag finished with a time of 24:54 for fourth on the team behind freshman Sam Pons and 48th place overall in the race.

The Princeton women also made their presence felt on the national scene in South Bend. Battling similar conditions as the men, the Orange and Black powered through to an eighth-place showing overall. For the Princeton women, the first Tiger to finish was senior captain Alex Banfich in 13th place, who covered the 5K course in 17:19. Junior classmates Alexis Mikaelian and Greta Feldman came in next for Princeton, finishing in 17:47 and 17:51. Freshman Andrea Keklak and junior Mel Newbery finished the scoring for the Tigers.

In a remarkable display of depth, both Princeton teams also sent second squads to the Paul Short Invitational at Lehigh University — where the Tigers faced harder, national competition and wet conditions. For the men, senior Thomas Dialynas led the Princeton “B” team to its 21st place finish in the Men’s Gold Race, covering the sloppy 8K course in 25:24 — taking 77th out of 402 runners overall. Runners from the women’s team competed in the “open” race, which included both professionals and collegiates. Spearheading the squad over the 6K course were freshmen Rachel Skokowski and Gina Talt — who crossed the line in 22:41 and 22:44, respectively — placing 19th and 21st out of 341 competitors.

While the past weekend was a good step for Princeton, both the men and women are looking forward to much better results later in the season.

“With two more weeks of training before the Wisconsin Invite, where we’ll face an even stronger and deeper field, we’ll hopefully have converted some more of our summer training into race-sharpness,” Cabral said. “In cross country, it’s nearly impossible to be at peak fitness from the first race until the last race, so we have been setting up our training to get us in peak shape for mid-October through late November, when we’ll hopefully be travelling to Indiana for nationals.”

Additionally, Friday’s races will serve as learning experiences for new freshmen, many of whom are still getting used to the 8k distance, as well as for veteran runners. After months of peaceful summer training, the rough-and-tumble of big-meet, physical-style racing can catch some off guard.

“I think our next big step is to develop more comfort pushing ourselves to the limit in races. We’re fit, but sometimes, in the early season, it’s hard to get used to racing. As we do it more frequently, we’ll figure out how much we can handle and toe that line as best as we can,” Cabral said.

For now, the Tigers continue to train full steam ahead, gaining strength and speed as the season progresses. In upcoming action, both teams look to test their fitness again at the talent-loaded Wisconsin Invitational on Oct. 14 and to extend their dominance over the Ivy League at the Heptagonal Championships on Oct. 29.