XC team finishes in middle of pack Giddings '07 bags 4th, Butcher '08 9th

Author: Jeff Patterson

The football and cross country teams competed in Connecticut on Saturday and although neither team won and the cross country's bus ride was 47 miles longer, it must have felt shorter to the runners than it did to the running backs on account of each team's performance.

While the football team was pummeled 34-3 by Trinity, the cross country teams placed respectably well at the NESCAC Championship. The women finished fourth, improving from last year's fifth place finish, and the men placed sixth, which was the same position they held in 2005.

For the women it could have very easily been second place. Second, third and fourth were all separated by a single point, (fifth place was 42 points behind that). Unfortunately, the women came up short of Tufts and Williams.

Mother Nature was not very motherly in the Constitution State, as the wind and rain constituted what Jimmy Butcher '08 and Co-Captain Will McDonough '07 called "the worst weather [they'd] ever raced in." Waterford was certainly an appropriate setting for this, the 24th running of this championship race.

"It was like running in a hurricane," said Bruce Hallett '10, who finished third on the team and 32nd overall.

"The course was within feet of Long Island Sound, and there were waves breaking onto the course," said McDonough, who was the second Panther to cross the finish line, finishing 26th. "The wind was awful, the rain was ceaseless and there were shin-deep sections of mud and water throughout the course."

In McDonough's previous three years, none of his teammates had cracked the top-ten, but that came to an end as Butcher finished ninth. Amazingly, he did so without wearing a shoe on his right foot for the last three-and-a-half miles. He lost it when it was stepped on from behind, but he never lost his concentration. Despite having little to no traction and falling down twice attempting to go around two corners Butcher ran at a blistering 5:23-mile pace.

At the completion of the race, without any blisters to speak of, Butcher went back to look for his shoe, but he was unable to find it. The mud had swallowed it up, so he left it behind.

The men's team will be left behind from Nationals if they do not improve their finishes. Only five teams from the region receive bids, so another sixth place will not be good enough. "At Regionals, it will be imperative for all of us to move up on the competition," said Butcher.

Although a sixth place finish won't clinch a bid, it is still pretty impressive. The five teams that came before them - Williams, Bowdoin, Amherst, Trinity and Wesleyan - are all ranked in the top-35 in the country.

"To be within a few points of nationally-recognized programs really shows how far this program has come," said McDonough.

Two bright spots on the otherwise gray day were the finishes by two women runners, Andrea Giddings '07, who came in fourth overall at 23:15, and Erin Archard '07, who finished eighth with a time of 23:26. Giddings has consistently run well in the NESCAC Championship, her worst result in the event was 14th as a first-year in 2003. For Archard, this year was a big improvement over last as she climbed up 31 places.

"Last year wasn't the best season," said Archard. "Training last summer has brought me closer to the level that I should be running at."