The men’s and women’s cross country teams competed at Mt. Greylock High School this past Saturday, Nov. 7. The men competed in a field of 40 teams, placing third with 117 points total. They followed Amherst, with 53 points and Williams with 77. The women also had an impressive finish, ending fourth overall with 78 points in a field of 46 teams. This was an upset for the other teams in the competition, as the women entered the ECAC Championship ranked eighth. They followed Tufts with 45 points, University of New England with 63 and Williams with 73 points. Both teams rested their top eight runners in preparation for NCAA Regionals this weekend, and the NCAA National Championship the following weekend.
The women had five runners finishing in the top 20 runners of a 311-runner field. The top finisher for the women was Robin Vincent ’18 who finished fifth. She was followed closely by a tight pack of Olivia Artaiz ’16 (18), Caroline Guiot ’16 (19), Claire Gomba ’19 (20) and Read Allen ’18 (66). Artaiz and Guiot finished out their final season and final race on a high note, crossing the finish line at nearly the same time. Tiana Thomas of University of New England won the race with a time of 22:54.20.
Artaiz was proud of her team after running her last race for the Panthers.
“I would say that we went into this weekend all knowing it was our last race so wanted to have fun with it,” she said. “We were all in a good mood in the line and it was a symbolic race for Caroline and I as it was out last race ever wearing a Middlebury uniform. We ran the entire race together and finished at the exact same time. We had plans to hold hands across the finish but we found out you can’t actually do that in cross country or you get disqualified. It was a good close to the season and we were all happy to race one last time for each other.”
On the men’s side, Samuel Klockenkemper ’17 was the top finisher for Middlebury, finishing in 10th place. He was followed by Kevin Serrao ’18 in 15th, Harrison Knowlton ’19 (18), Benjamin Hill ’19 (25) and Andrew Michelson ’19 (50). The men competed against a field of 277 runners, making their top five finishes all the more impressive. Liam Simpson of Williams College topped the competition with a time of 26:24.13.
“It was a great day,” Klockenkemper said. “We ran a team of mostly first-years and to get third like that speaks to the depth of our team. We’ve got a lot of positive energy moving forward from this meet and our performance at NESCAC’s, and I think we’re all just excited to see what this team can do. We’re running fast when it counts.”
While many of the Panthers finished out their season with this meet, the runners who were rested this weekend will compete again this Saturday, Nov. 14 at regionals. The women race at 11 a.m. and the men follow at 12:30 p.m.
