The No. 4 ranked Georgetown women’s cross country team is headed to the NCAA championships after a second-place finish at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Meet.
The Hoyas finished with 35 points, just four more than top finisher and Big East foe Villanova. Penn State (92), West Virginia (124) and Princeton (135) rounded out the top five teams. Villanova’s first-place finish was crucial for the team to continue to NCAAs.
“Villanova was in a place where they didn’t have that many at-large points, so they had to go all out in this meet,” Head Coach Michael Smith explained. “They had to be top two. …They were in the position that if they didn’t take that meet seriously then they weren’t going to go to NCAAs, so they had to run like that.”
Georgetown’s victorious effort was led by the usual suspects. Sophomore Samantha Nadel crossed the finish line third with a time of 20:09, followed by junior Madeline Chambers with a sixth place finish (20:13). Senior Rachel Schneider was on the heels of Chambers, coming in seventh (20:15). Junior Annamarie Maag finished ninth (20:20), junior Katrina Coogan finished 10th (20:21) and freshman Haley Pierce came in 11th (20:21). Junior Kelsey Smith was the last of the Hoyas to cross the line, coming in 15th (20:33).
Even more impressive than the Blue and Gray’s second place finish is the fact that all seven of the runners finished within 24 seconds of one another. Again, the Hoyas utilized their small spread, or lack of disparity in finishing times, to find success.
“We had a spread of 12 seconds between our scoring runners, and doing that in cross country is virtually unheard of,” Smith explained.
The Blue and Gray ran their usual seven runners aside from running Smith in place of sophomore Rachel Paul, who will compete at the NCAAs. Smith will run as an alternate at the NCAAs.
Coming in third after Villanova and Princeton, the Georgetown men’s cross country team did not receive an automatic bid for the NCAAs. Villanova finished first with 34 points, followed by Princeton with 60 points. Georgetown fell just short, totaling 63 points. Based off of the results at meets preceding the Mid-Atlantic, the team unfortunately will not receive an at-large bid. The Wisconsin Adidas Invitational on Oct. 19 was a missed opportunity, according to Assistant Coach Brandon Bonsey.
“When we went to Wisconsin we blew a great opportunity to get some at-large points, so in that sense we sort of dug ourselves into a hole in the middle of the season. … We weren’t running like we were capable of,” Bonsey said. “We should have run stronger at Wisconsin, and if we had, we’d be going to nationals right now.”
Though graduate student Andrew Springer finished third for the Blue and Gray, it wasn’t enough to guarantee a second-place overall finish. Senior Brian King and juniors John Murray and Collin Leibold finished 13th, 14th and 15th with times 30:14, 30:17 and 30:18, respectively. Senior Bobby Peavey snatched up 18th place (30:24). Freshman Ryan Gil rounded out the Hoyas’ group with a 28th place finish (30:53). An injury to the achilles tendon prevented sophomore Ahmed Bile from completing the race.
Despite the result, Bonsey was extremely proud of the team’s performance. It followed the race plan by beginning the race conservatively as opposed to gunning it right out of the starting line. Individuals on the team also turned in impressive performances.
“I think Andrew Springer, Colin Leibold, John Murray and Bobby Peavey all ran their best cross country race ever,” Bonsey continued. “At 5K, we had all seven guys running right together. …It was exciting that we were finally this year coming into the latter stages of the race excited and ready to do something. Yesterday I was really proud of the guys. They ran as a team, they ran tough, they ran poised and they executed the plan really well.”
The women will head to Terre Haute, Ind., for the NCAAs on Saturday Nov. 23. Springer will run as an individual at the NCAAs, representing the Georgetown name on the men’s side.
