On Saturday Nov. 1, the Middlebury cross country teams hosted the NESCAC championship meet for the first time since 2003. On a blustery, cold day, the men took home a third-place finish while the women, led by by individual number-one racer Alison Maxwell ’15, were crowned NESCAC champions for the second year in a row, tallying the eleventh team victory in program history.
Williams’s Colin Cotton turned in a dominating performance to secure his individual victory, smashing the 13-year-old course record of 25:35 with a time of 24:56.
Colby sophomore David Chelimo, who finished as runner up to Cotton, led the race through the first several miles. Chelimo was followed closely behind by Cotton, Williams junior Bijan Mazaheri and Middlebury’s Kevin Wood ’15. During the second loop of the race, Cotton opened up a sizable lead, passing Chelimo and dropping the chase pack as he went on to win by a sizeable 16-second margin.
Chelimo finished in 25:12, a second ahead of Mazaheri’s third-place time of 25:13. Williams senior Aldis Inde took fourth in a time 25:17, effectively sealing the meet for the Ephs. Wood turned in a strong finish to take fifth in 25:22. Wilder Schaaf ’14.5 was the second Panther to cross the line with a ninth-place finish in 25:30.
Including Schaaf, the top nine runners in the men’s field were all under the previous course record time.
In the team battle, Williams scored 39 points to repeat as champions. Their 39 points were the lowest total scored in the men’s race since 2006 when the Ephs scored 30 points for their victory.
Colby took second with 76 points, their highest finish since 1993 when they tied for first with Wesleyan. Colby has undergone a rapid ascend in the ranks of NESCAC cross country: every year from 2004 to 2011, the Mules finished either last or second to last. The 2012 squad finished 9th of 11 and last year’s team finished fifth.
Middlebury took a close third with 80 points after finishing second the previous two years.
After the dust had settled from the men’s race, the women toed the line in the debut of Middlebury’s six-kilometer championship course. As predicted, the race was the latest addition to the storied history of battles between Middlebury and Williams.
Early in the race, the Panthers looked dominant: Alison Maxwell ’15, Summer Spillane ’15 and Adrian Walsh ’16, joined by Tufts junior Audrey Gould, constituted the lead pack, without a Williams runner in sight. The pack of Ephs, though, were running together and working through the race in a conservative fashion. As the race progressed, the lead pack strung out with Maxwell opening up a sizable lead and the Ephs creeping up in the field.
“Our strategy, as usual, was to stay in a tight pack or two for the first two or three miles of the race,” Maxwell said. “We definitely accomplished this for the first mile or so, but then I think the pace caused us to break up a little earlier than we wanted to.”
At the finish, Maxwell took home the individual title — the first Panther to do so since 2001 — in a time of 22:16.
“I was hoping to keep up with the front pack and out-sprint as many people as I could at the finish,” Maxwell said. “I definitely did not expect to be leading the race for as long as I was. It was a position I had never been in before, but I think it was good for me to run out of my comfort zone.”
Behind Maxwell, Spillane sprinted past Gould in the final 100 meters of the race to take second in 22:33. Gould took third and Williams sophomore Emma Zehner was the first Eph across in the line in fourth. Walsh maintained her strong position established early in the race to finish sixth in 22:45.
After Walsh came two more Ephs before Katie Carlson ’15.5 was the 10th woman and fourth Panther across the line in 22:54.
Because a team’s score in cross country is determined by the places of the top five runners, Middlebury needed a fifth finisher to cap the team scoring before too many Williams athletes crossed the line. Olivia Artaiz ’16 was the Panther who came through next, earning a 19th-place finish to solidify Middlebury’s solid top five.
When the points were tallied, the Panthers took first with 38 points to Williams’s 47.
Next on the docket for the Panthers is the ECAC Championship on Nov. 8 at Stanley Park in Westfield, MA.
