The Georgetown indoor track and field team will roll into this weekend’s Valentine Invitational at Boston University on a remarkable hot streak. At last month’s Penn State National Invitational, both the men’s and women’s Distance Medley Relay teams posted the fastest times in the nation thus far for the indoor season — and they are not anywhere close to being finished.

“It’s great that we ran those times relatively early in the year,” sophomore Amos Bartelsmeyer said. “Now we can have guys focus on the individual events.”

For the men’s team, this opportunity to have runners focus on qualifying individually for the NCAA Tournament could be monumental, particularly during the 1-mile race at this weekend’s Valentine Invitational, during which a stable of Georgetown middle-distance runners will be especially primed to try and chase down junior sub-four-minute man Ahmed Bile.

“I think we have at least four or five guys who could do [run a sub-four-minute mile],” Bartelsmeyer said. “Even if you have the potential, though, it’s still a big thing to do it so we’re hoping for the best this weekend.”

Along with Bartelsmeyer, Director of Track and Field Patrick Henner notes that sophomore Ryan Manahan, senior Cole Williams and junior Michael Lederhouse are in contention to join Bile in Georgetown’s esteemed sub-four-minute mile-club this year.
“Paul Lederhouse in particular, he ran a 4:03 in the mile last year,” Henner said. “He is very capable of being right there.”

Unfortunately, Williams will have to wait for his chance to break the four-minute barrier due to a flu that will keep him out of this weekend’s race. Additionally, graduate student Billy Ledder, who is one of Georgetown’s top runners, and freshman Joe White, who ran with last week’s notable DMR relay, will not join the team in Boston this weekend in order to train and rest up for the last few meets of the season.

The women’s team arguably rolls into the Valentine Invitational meet with even more steam than the men. Sitting mightily with their new ranking of ninth in the country just two weeks before the Big East Championships, the Hoyas are hitting their groove at just the right time.

Despite being an individual sport by nature, the runners have been feeding off each other’s energy and successes in recent weeks and are functioning as a team in every sense.

“Everyone has been running so well,” junior Samantha Nadel said. “Everyone is so pumped up to be racing, and with the postseason in two weeks, we are all excited [for] what’s to come.”

Some of this exhilaration can be traced to some of the new talent surfacing during the back half of this season.
“During cross-country season, all of our top seven runners were upperclassmen,” Nadel said. “But the freshmen have come out during this season, and it’s been great.”

In particular among this bunch of freshmen are middle-distance runners Piper Donaghu and Kennedy Weisner, who are looking to continue their recent success this weekend.

“Piper has been running [personal records] and same with Kennedy — they’ve been killing it,” Nadel said.

This adrenaline could be just the surge the women’s team needs heading into this weekend’s invitational. In this home stretch of the season, a whole host of runners are on the cusp of qualifying for nationals.
“[Senior] Katrina Coogan in the 3000-meter, Sam Nadel and [junior] Haley Pierce in the 5000-meter, and [sophomore] Sabrina Southerland and Piper Donaghu in the 800-meter are all right there to qualify for the NCAAs,” Henner said.
With just two weeks to go until the Big East Championships, this weekend could prove to be an excellent chance for this slew of women’s runners to realize their postseason goals.