On Saturday, Oct. 11, the cross country teams raced at historic Franklin Park in Boston, MA, competing in the NEICAAA Championships. The meet — colloquially known as Open New Englands — invites all New England cross country teams from all divisions to participate. Against this stiff competition, the women placed second as a team while the men finished eighth. Additionally, Wilder Schaaf ’14.5 and Alison Maxwell ’15 were both recognized as men’s and women’s USTFCCCA National Athletes of the Week and NESCAC Performer of the Week for their performances.
The varsity women scored 162 points in their second place finish, 101 points behind winner University of New Hampshire and nine points ahead of third place rival MIT.
The varsity women were paced by Maxwell, who finished 11th overall in a time of 18:00 for 5 kilometers and was the first Division-III woman across the line. Just 12 seconds behind Maxwell was Summer Spillane ’15, notching a 24th place finish as the third Division-III athlete. Behind Spillane were Adrian Walsh ’16, Katie Carlson ’15 and Addis Fouche-Channer ’17 in 36th, 45th and 50th place, respectively. Fouche-Channer — the team’s fifth and final scoring runner -- finished the race in 18:31, giving the Panthers a slim 31-second scoring spread.
The time between a team’s first finisher and their fifth finisher is often indicative of team strength and depth: the narrower the margin, the lower the team score will be. With an athlete of the week leading the charge, the women are fitted with a strong lead runner and a solid pack not far behind.
Giving further credence to the depth of this year’s team was the performance of the junior varsity squad; these women also grabbed a second place finish with 71 points, again behind UNH, who won the race with 50 points. This squad was fronted by Erzsie Nagy ’17, who finished fifth, with a time of 18:50, Caroline Guiot ’16, who finished seventh in 18:53, and Emma DeCamp ’17, who finished ninth in 19:00.
These runners demonstrated the power of pack running and will provide depth should an injury occur to a scoring athlete in the critical November meets.
Like the women, the men were top-placing Division-III team, taking home eighth with 291 points. The meet was won by Providence College with 72 points, eking out a victory over Brown on a tiebreaker, 3-2.
Not to be outdone by his counterpart on the women’s side, Schaaf finished the 8 km course seventh overall with a time of 24:46. Schaaf’s time is the fastest in Middlebury history at Franklin Park and he is the highest placing male Panther ever at Open New Englands.
“Before Opens, all of the courses we raced on were pretty hilly,” Schaaf said. “I think having a flatter course with good competition was what I needed to get the ball rolling.”
Like Maxwell, Schaaf was the first Division-III finisher at the meet. Not far behind Schaaf was Kevin Wood ’15, who took home a 15th-place finish in a time of 24:56 as the second Division-III runner to cross the line.
Unlike the women, the men suffered from a wide margin between runners: the third Panther to cross the line was Sebastian Matt ’16, running a time of 25:33 (37 seconds behind Wood) for 73rd. Sam Klockenkemper ’17 — in only his second race back from injury — was fourth on the team with an 81st-place finish in 25:37 and Jake Fox ’15 was the final scoring Panther in 115th, running 25:53.
A week later, on Oct. 18, both the men and women’s teams took home titles at the Albany Invite. Maxwell and Schaaf led the way again, finishing sixth and third, respectively.
“We took it as an opportunity to try to close the gap between the top seven runners and were successful at that,” Schaaf said. “It also gave Sebastian Matt a chance to study the back of my singlet from up close which I think he was happy about.”
“Albany was a tough race for a lot of people because we’re feeling the effects of a hard training cycle,” Maxwell said. “But we still ran great as a team, competing against other teams we almost never see, which is fun.”
The teams will take the weekend of Oct. 25th off before hosting the NESCAC Championships on Nov. 1. The women are poised to repeat as NESCAC Champions while the men look to take their first title since 2010.
“We definitely want to win NESCACs and Regionals, if only to prove to ourselves that we are capable of it,” Maxwell said. “Building confidence before our potential NCAA showing is key.”
