Who Runs the World? Women’s Cross Country

 After weeks of training, the championship season has finally arrived. The men’s and women’s cross country teams started off this final stretch of the season with the NESCAC Championships on Saturday, Oct. 27.  

Before NESCACs the teams were excited for the upcoming challenge. Theo Henderson ’20 said, “We have been diligently maintaining a positive attitude in preparation for NESCACs. Lots of laughs, high fives and smiles.” This excitement paid off, as the teams did extremely well against the competition.

With a score of 47, the women were able to outmatch their competitors to win the NESCAC Championships. The top three runners for the Panthers were Rory Kelly ’19 with a time of 22:30.1, Cassie Kearney ’22 with a time of 22:35.9 and Tasha Greene ’21 with a time of 23:06.0. Victory was also achieved thanks to Claire Gomba ’19, Katie Glew ’21, Tate Serletti ’20 and Kate MacCary ’19, who were the fourth to seventh fastest runners for the Panthers, respectively.

With a score of 88, the men came in third. Ahead of them was Amherst with a score of 60 and Williams with a score of 86. The top three runners for the Panthers were Jon Perlman ’19, Henderson and Henry Fleming ’20.  They had times of 25:57.6, 26:07.3 and 26:11.2, respectively. In order, Harrison Knowlton ’19, Matt D’Aquila ’21, Andrew Michelson ’19 and Thomas Tarantino ’21 were the fourth through seventh fastest runners for the Panthers.

“Our goal was to win NESCACs, but it was a close race between the top three teams,” Perlman said. “So we feel that we can come back and beat Amherst and Williams at regionals and nationals.”

“I would say that NESCACs was not the team performance we were looking for, although certainly there were some strong individual performances,” added Knowlton. “We knew we were better than the score we finished with. A few of our top runners had off races, and while our team does have some depth, it wasn’t enough to cover for those in such a competitive field.”

If the men and women compete as they did in this race, they are expected to be in a competitive position against their opponents at the next two meets. The Panthers will run in the NCAA Regional Championships on Saturday, Nov. 10 at Bowdoin College.  

“We’re excited to get another opportunity to race the NESCAC schools at regionals, and we feel like we can win that meet,” Perlman said.

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