Sprinting Back to Form: Cross-Country Goes to Brown

The men's and women's varsity cross-country teams, looking to rebound from injuries and relatively slow starts, race today against North-eastern and Brown at Brown University.

Each team has had two races this season, September 17 at Fordham University and September 24 at the BC Invitational. The race today is unique in that it combines men's and women's scores.

The men, who finished fourth in the league last year, had a disappointing performance at Fordham, according to junior runner Matthew Bellizzi. He called the team's performance at the BC Invitational, however, "a good improvement--we ran much better than at Fordham." The team finished eighth out of approximately 20 teams.

The team will be mainly focusing on Brown in today's meet. Bellizzi said that "the race should be between us and them." He cited Brown and Dartmouth as the two top teams in the Ivy League this year.

"They have a really strong top three, and pretty much always have a strong team," he said. "They've beaten us pretty handily in the past. The men's team finished 10 points behind Brown at last year's Heptagonals, a meet including the Ivy League teams, Army, and Navy, and lost to them last week as well.

The team's strategy in today's race will be to get off fast and accrete a big group at the front of the race, which makes it easier to keep up a pace. The team used this strategy last year en route to beating Princeton and Yale.

Sophomores Daniel Herlihy and Killian Lonergan are the only injured team members, and have not raced this year. Bellizzi expressed few worries about the injuries, however.

"We have enough good runners left that we should still run well," he said.

According to Bellizzi, the team is focused on having a good showing at this year's Heptagonals on October 28, and will hopefully compete in the Nationals at Fayetville, Arkansas in mid-November. The top two teams in the northeast region qualify for the Nationals.

"We think we're a good team," he said. "Now we need to show we're a great team," said Matthew, who added that beating Brown would be a step in that direction.

The women's team will also "be gunning for Brown" in today's race, according to senior Meredith Fitzgerald. Like the men's team, she said the women "didn't have many good performances" at Fordham, citing the hot and humid weather as a possible factor. Although she says the team ran "better" last weekend, it still lost to Brown. It beat Brown at last year's Brown Triangular race.

Fitzgerald felt that today's race will be "tough," as Brown has one of the best teams in the league. She said, however, that the team will get "a big boost" from the return of number-one runner Karen Goetze, who had been sidelined with an injury and did not race last weekend. With senior captain Kelly Benke also healthy, the team is at full strength, except for some "nagging injuries."

Benke added that the course at Brown is "very tough, with a lot of hills--it takes its toll on your legs." She said that the team has been "looking good in practice--we've all been talking it up, and we're aware of what we have to do."

The main goal of the team is to reduce the time between runners from approximately 42 to 20 seconds.

Benke said that staying close gives a team "a psychological advantage" as the runners push each other, and can make a huge difference in scoring.

According to Benke, the Harvard-Yale-Princeton on October 14 will be a keep meet of the season. The team lost to Princeton last year by one point. Also, the Heptagonals is a major event, and Benke sees Dartmouth and Cornell as the top opposition.

Fitzgerald said that the women's team is also focusing on going to the Nationals this winter. She says that coach Frank Haggerty feels "this is the best team he's seen, and that's encouraging. I've never heard him so excited."