Cross Country: Banfich takes program-best 5th at NCAAs

Even though her team struggled during the season, senior cross country captain Alex Banfich never failed to bring her best. Despite traveling to the NCAA Championships in Terre Haute, Ind., on Monday without a team, the three-time All-America proved that she is truly one of the best distance runners in the nation. Banfich powered down the final stretch of the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course to claim fifth place overall, the best finish ever for a Princeton cross country individual.

On the men’s side, senior co-captain Donn Cabral took 19th place in the field, leading the men’s cross country team to a 19th place overall standing.

No stranger to success over the rolling hills of the course, Banfich won three consecutive state championships in high school on the same course in Terre Haute, Ind.

“I felt really good,” Banfich said. “That was the 15th time I’ve run that course. I’m from Indiana — that was where our state meet was. It was great that my last cross country race was there.”

Establishing her position early in the race, Banfich tucked into the middle of the lead pack as it ran through the opening stages. Despite going out at a breakneck pace through the first mile, a strong group of around 15 stayed together all the way until a kilometer to go in the 6K race. At that point, the top contenders started to hammer, as a group of eight splintered off in pursuit of the finish line.

“My plan going into the race was just to try to cover any moves that were being made,” Banfich said. “I just stayed with the lead pack, and whenever they moved, I went with them.”

Still anybody’s race to win with less than 800 meters left, Oregon’s Jordan Hasay kicked the pace into high gear as she powered to the finish line with the 2010 champion Sheila Reid of Villanova in hot pursuit. Collaring Hasay coming down the long homestretch, Reid held on to win her second individual title in 19 minutes, 41.2 seconds.

Dartmouth sophomore and 2011 Heptagonals champion Abbey D’Agostino came in at 19:42.9 for third place, with Banfich kicking hard two spots behind her to finish in 19:45.0. Junior Alexis Mikaelian, Princeton’s second individual qualifier, ran 22:16.0 to take 232nd in the deep field.

Banfich’s best collegiate performance yet can only give her confidence as she heads into the final track and field seasons of her career at Princeton.

“It’s definitely a huge confidence builder for track to know that I can race with the top girls,” Banfich said. “I’m excited; it just makes me all the more motivated to see how much I can improve this year. It’s definitely a great way to end my cross country season.”

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Racing 50 minutes before the women, the men’s cross country team did not have the team performance it had been hoping for since the long months of summer training. Though they reached a team ranking of No. 9 going into the championship season, the Tigers began to struggle after a too-close-for-comfort victory at the Ivy League Championships. Nevertheless, the Princeton men still placed 19th overall in the nation, one of their best finishes ever. The fact that 19th is a slight disappointment is only a testament to the sheer growth of the program over the past few years.

“As a team, it was a pretty disappointing race,” Cabral said. “It was a pretty poor representation of what our fitness was and what our talent is.”

In contrast to the bunched women’s race, the men’s race was cracked open early into the 10-kilometer course. After following an already hot pace forged by Northern Arizona’s Diego Estrada, at around four kilometers Arizona’s Lawi Lalang took the lead and began to stretch the field out.

“The race was faster than it’s ever been in recent years,” Cabral said. “It was an aggressive race from the beginning.”

Two kilometers later, Lalang was still accelerating, forging as much as a 100-meter lead on the chase pack. The drama for the individual title soon fizzled out as Lalang never relented, blitzing the tough course in 28:44.1, more than 13 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Chris Derrick from Stanford.

Leading the Tigers, Cabral earned his second straight All-America honors in cross country, taking 19th in a time of 29:44.4. Cabral’s place is the second best finish for a male individual in Princeton’s cross country history. Nevertheless, the two-time national runner-up in the steeplechase was looking for something better than good.

“It wasn’t anything I dreamed of, but I’ve got to be happy with All American and improving on last year, making the top 20,” Cabral said. “It wasn’t my best performance, but I’m not upset with it.”

Meanwhile, in a closer team title pursuit, the Wisconsin Badgers snapped Oklahoma State’s two-year winning streak. Dominating the meet, Wisconsin scored 97 points to the Cowboys’ 139.

Though co-captains Cabral and senior Brian Leung will have graduated, a young group of talented freshmen and sophomores can look forward to pursuing a top 10 finish once more next fall, 365 days of hard training from now.

“Hopefully we can put things together next year, and this year in track,” Cabral said. “We can have this drive us a little more for the seasons to come.”