This past Saturday, Sept. 14, the cross country teams opened the season with a quick trip to Hanover, NH to run in the Dartmouth Cross Country Invitational. Squaring off against five teams across all NCAA divisions, the women secured a fourth place finish while the men finished sixth.
Due to the length of the season, Coach Nicole Wilkerson limited her athletes’ efforts for the season opener: “The men [ran controlled] for 3 miles and then started racing for 2 miles and I held the women back for 2 miles and then they raced for the last 1.6 miles. I had divided each of the teams into 3 ‘packs’ but they kind of blended, as they were only about 5-10 seconds off per mile.”
The men kicked off the day with a fine showing in the 8000m distance. Kevin Wood ’15 led the way for the Panthers, finishing in 26:14, good for 29th place. Wood was followed closely by fellow tri-captains Wilder Schaaf ’14.5 and Jake Fox ’15, who made his Middlebury cross country debut after fighting injuries last season. Picking up the last scoring spots were Brian Rich ’17 and Sam Cartwright ’16 with 45th and 46th placing finishes. The varsity squad was rounded out by first years Tim McGovern ’18 and Peter Elkind ’18, who finished strong in their attempts at the 8000m.
On the women’s side, the team was fronted by Alison Maxwell ’15 and Katie Carlson ’15. Maxwell—the team’s top finisher at the NCAA meet last year—picked up right where she left off, clocking a time of 23:28 for 6000m, good for 30th place. Carlson followed nine seconds behind for a 31st place finish, a strong performance after missing last year’s track season. Behind the two seniors came the patented Middlebury “blob” — a pack of runners all finishing near one another — to close out the scoring. Addis Fouche-Channer ’17, Robin Vincent ’18, Adrian Walsh ’16, Olivia Artaiz ’16, and Brianna Bisson ’18 all finished within five seconds of one another. On the pack of Panthers, Carlson said, “As a team, we gained valuable practice running as a tight-knit pack, and as the season goes on I know we will only continue to narrow our spread. I think the underclassmen in particular are excited to step up and contribute.”
Since this meet was the first race since track season wrapped up in May, results were unpredictable for most. With tired legs from hard preseason training and tired minds from the first week of school, adjusting to racing can be difficult. Rich remains confident on the team’s prospects, saying, “I think that we came back well from preseason, which is incredibly demanding in terms of energy and time…I have full confidence that when we get to late season and post-season meets, our men’s team will be incredibly deep and very strong.”
The Panthers return to action on Saturday, Sept. 20th, hosting the Aldrich Invite in a preview of the NESCAC Championship course. Races begin at 12:30 near the rugby field.
