Cross Country Displays Depth at ECACs

On Saturday, Nov. 9, the cross country teams traveled to Bristol, RI, to participate in the ECAC Championships hosted by Roger Williams University. Due to the meet’s timing — a week after NESCAC Championships and a week before the NCAA New England Regional meet — the Panthers, as well as most other teams in the field, rested their top athletes, allowing some younger talent to compete in a championship setting.

The ECAC meet is a good barometer of a team’s depth and can be indicative of success in the coming years. The women’s team showed that they have good things to come, as they emerged victorious, scoring 30 points, 34 ahead of second place Williams. Catie Skinner ’17 led the way, winning the six-kilometer race in a time of 22:30. Ten seconds behind Skinner was second place finisher Emily Attwood ’14. After Attwood and Skinner were Emma DeCamp ’17 with a 5th place finish, Lottie Hedden ’14 coming in 10th, as well as Abigail Pohl ’17 and Kate Leib ’16 finishing consecutively in 12th and 13th.

Skinner said that being without her full compliment of teammates required pre-race planning.

“We decided that the two girls on the line would need to be able to get a fast start to immediately get the [pack] to the front of the race,” said Skinner. “After the start, I knew that we would all be together for most of the race, and once we separated, it wouldn’t be by much, so I would have teammates to work with the whole time. I honestly had no idea who would take the race, but I knew I was going to race hard and do what I could to push and support my teammates.”

In the men’s race, the Panthers scored 175 points, good for 5th place behind Williams, Tufts, Amherst, and Colby. Sam Cartwright ’16 was the top Middlebury man with a 17th place finish in 26:33. Narrowly behind him was Sam Klockenkemper ’17 at 26:43 for 22nd place. Aaron de Toledo ’16, Adam Kelley ’16.5, and Derek Satterfield ’15 rounded out the scoring for the Panthers. All five scorers finished within 45 seconds of one another.

On Saturday, Nov. 16, the teams will be in Gorham, ME, to participate in the NCAA New England Regional Championships. The results of the meet determine who gets to compete in the NCAA Championships in Hanover, IN. The top two finishing teams from each gender are automatically moved on to the national meet and there are 16 at large bids available for teams across the country. In the past few years, the New England Region has sent its top five finishing teams to the national meet, although the Panthers would like to avoid the waiting game from the selection committee. As of Nov. 6, the men were ranked 2nd in the region and 6th nationally while the women were ranked 1st in the region and 2nd nationally. Last year, the men’s team won the regional meet and the women’s team finished third.

Competing for the men at the NCAA Regionals will be Greg Krathwohl ’14, Nate Sans ’14, Sam Craft ’14, Wilder Schaaf ’14.5, Kevin Wood ’15, Sebastian Matt ’16, and Luke Carpinello ’16. The women, lead by NESCAC Women’s Coach of the Year Nicole Wilkerson, will toe the line with Katie Rominger ’14, Emily Singer ’14, Sarah Guth ’15, Alison Maxwell ’15, Summer Spillane ’15, Katherine Tercek ’16, and newly minted NESCAC Rookie of the Year Erzsie Nagy ’17.

Wilkerson is looking forward to the regional meet, which she anticipates being a lot of fun.

“The women will look to continue to race a tight one through five and that should result favorably for us,” Wilkerson said. “For the men, I am not worried about other teams per se but know that we can tighten the gap from 40+ seconds from our one through five to less then 35 seconds and that will make a huge difference in a field that big.”