The women’s and men’s cross country teams won their respective races in the Great Meadow Invitational this Saturday at The Plains in Great Meadows, Va. While both teams were satisfied with their success over the weekend, their focus is on preparing for the Big East and NCAA Tournaments in November.
Despite holding five of their top seven runners out of the race, the women’s team, ranked second in the country, defeated Penn State and Yale 35-40-53 in the 5-kilometer race. Sophomore Jodee Adams-Moore crossed the line first for the Hoyas and fourth overall with a time of 17 minutes, 50.71 seconds. Senior Erin Sicher finished close behind in fifth with a time of 17 minutes, 53.52 seconds.
“I was happy with the team’s performance,” said Director of Track and Field and Cross Country Ron Helmer. “I was happy with their sense of purpose and composure in the way they executed the race plan.”
With minor injuries occurring across the board for the Hoyas and with some runners needing more race training than others, it is possible that Georgetown will not put its top seven runners together in a race until the Big East Championship.
“We just need seven girls who are at their peak at Big East and national time,” said Sicher.
“There’s no reason to run [all our girls] in September when you want them to run well in November,” said Helmer. “By giving other people a chance to run now, when November rolls around we’ll have our best seven ready to go.”
As a result, the races before the championship do not have much significance for the Hoyas
“Our overall record means nothing,” said Helmer. “In a sport where you’re always testing your limits, it’s always difficult to find the line between the appropriate work level and staying healthy … We bump up against the line a lot.”
“It’s going to be hard not to pay attention to the polls,” said Adams-Moore. “We just have to have faith in the team and our coaches.”
The ninth-ranked men’s team’s strategy is similar. Although the Hoyas defeated Yale 22-39, the focus of the meet was on honing race technique and preparing for November.
“The strategy we’re going to use for a lot of our meets is to go out conservative and finish very hard,” said senior Mike Smith who finished first for the Hoyas and second overall with a time of 25 minutes, 35.60 seconds in the 8-kilometer race. “We’re happy with the way we did that this weekend.”
“The way we ran this weekend was something that I never felt before,” said senior Kalpanatit Broderick, who finished third overall with a time of 25 minutes, 47.20 seconds. “The whole Yale team was ahead of us in the beginning. Then we came out and sucked them up one by one like bees in a swarm. When we caught them, they were already done.”
The Hoyas have already lost two of their top runners to injury, Franklyn Sanchez and Chris Miltenberg, but are still confident.
“We finished 15th at nationals last year and we have a much better team than last year, so we’re really excited,” said Assistant Coach Patrick Henner.
“Our goal is to stay healthy,” said Smith. “Cross country is not like soccer in that you need a few games under your belt to start playing together as a team … We want to be ready for the end of November.”
