Women and Butcher 08 qualify for NCAAs Men's team finishes in eighth as its season comes to a close in Springfield

Author: Dan Berkman

The Middlebury women's cross country team will return to the NCAA Championships this year after a fourth place finish at NCAA Regionals in Springfield, Mass. The top five women's teams from the New England region qualify for Nationals. The men's team finished eighth in a 43-team race with only the top three teams qualifying for Nationals. Individually, Jimmy Butcher '08 qualified for Nationals with a 12th place finish in 26:02 minutes, only a minute off the winning time.

The rest of the men's team ran strong individual races as well. Coming in second on the team and 19th overall was senior captain Garrott Kuzzy with a time of 26:10. Nolan Sandygren '06 finished third for the team and 31st overall in 26:26 minutes. Juniors Will McDonough and Chris Pelliccia came in three seconds apart with times of 26:59 and 27:01, good for 63rd and 67th place overall, respectively. Butcher and Kuzzy were First-Team All Region and Sandygren was Second-Team All Region.

Butcher applauded the team's finish: "The team ran a very tactical race going out conservatively and starting to roll when the rest of the competition began to fatigue. The team could not have performed better, and it's an honor to have the opportunity to represent our team at the National meet." Baker Lyon '06 was the third best seventh man in the whole race (each team can only race seven) which demonstrates how deep the men's team was all year. Overall, the men had a great season and have continued to show improvement over the past few years.

The big achievement of the day belongs to the women's team, who are once again going to Nationals. Andrea Giddings '07 led the women in the 6k race with a time of 22:06 and an 11th place finish, only 36 seconds off the winning pace. Makely Lyon '07 came in second on the team and 15th overall with the time of 22:28. First-year Alexandra Krieg finished in 22:44, good for 24th place. Claire Anderson'06 placed 33rd overall with a time of 23:06. Kelsey Rinehart '06 rounded out the scorers with a time of 23:21 in 46th place. Giddings and Lyon earned First-Team All Region, while Krieg and Anderson earned Second-Team All Region honors.

The women's team rallied together to earn this trip to Nationals. Rinehart affirmed, "Each of us put in her hardest effort because we were running for each other. . . . We are all confident and excited about Nationals. So many of us have experience at Nationals, which I think will be to our advantage on Saturday." Coming off a strong regionals race, the women look to carry their momentum this weekend at Nationals at Ohio-Wesylan.