Cross Country Races in NESCACs

The Middlebury men’s and women’s cross-country teams both placed second out of the 11-team fields in the NESCAC Championships held at Bowdoin College this past Saturday. The second place finishes were great signs of success for the Panthers as the NESCAC is notorious for its highly competitive cross-country teams.

The Middlebury men’s eight-kilometer, 124-man race was highlighted by a fourth-place finish from senior captain Jack Davies ’13 with a time of 24:32.83. Davies finished just six seconds behind first-place finisher Coby Horowitz of Bowdoin. Davies’ performance was complemented by a 10th-place finish from Nate Sans ’14, a 15th-place finish from Kevin Wood ’15 and an 18th-place finish from Greg Krathwohl ’14. With the help of these top finishes, along with other top-30 finishes from captain Patrick Hebble ’13 and Wilder Schaaf ’14, the Middlebury men were able to capture the second-place team finish overall, losing by only three points to Tufts.

Senior Addie Tousley ’13 led the Panther women, finishing with a time of 21:20.62 in the 6K race, earning her second place in the 125-woman field. Tousley finished 47 seconds after Amherst senior Keri Lambert. The Panthers were also aided by 10th-, 11th- and 24th-place finishes by Emily Atwood ’14, Sarah Guth ’15 and Katie Rominger ’14 respectively, among other Middlebury top-30 finishes. The Panthers finished as the runner ups behind Williams who defended its NESCAC Championship win in 2011.

Going into the race the men’s and women’s teams were ranked fifth and second respectively in the NESCAC.

“This was a really true team performance,” said coach Nicole Wilkerson after the races. “Going into the conference meet we hadn’t seen many teams in our conference. We knew that we were going against high quality teams. It was great to see that we lined up well against them.”

Wilkerson also noted that it was great to see the Middlebury teams perform so well given that most of the training they have been doing of late is for future races.

Not only was this past race a true team performance, but also it demonstrated the ability for some of the younger runners to step up when needed as seen by the top-15 finishes from sophomores Guth and Wood.

Both the men’s and women’s teams have a tough schedule ahead of them, beginning with the ECAC Championship in Williamstown, Mass. next Saturday with a field of over 50 teams