NCAA cross country pundits will agree that you cannot look too deeply into early season meets. Often teams view the low-key races just as exaggerated workouts and hold out top runners, preferring to save full efforts for bigger meets down the road.

For Georgetown’s men’s and women’s cross country teams, last year’s NCAA Championship was not the finale to the great season that it was supposed to be.

No one had ever run a sub-four-minute mile in Nashville.

PHILADELPHIA — While they had one of the most successful years in Georgetown history, a big win has eluded the men’s distance squad. During cross country season, the Hoyas were one strong performance away from a Big East Championship and a top-five finish at Nationals. During indoors, they had Big East runner-up finishes in the 1,000 meters, 3000m, 4x800m and distance medley relay.

Three years ago on a visit to Georgetown, football recruit Kenny Mitchell saw the track and field Big East trophies that litter McDonough Gymnasium and could only think of helping the team win more. A standout in football, basketball, baseball and track in high school, Mitchell always dreamed of playing football and running track in college.

The Sea Ray Relays are a track athlete’s paradise: warm weather and solid competition usually make for the fast postseason qualifying times that runners are looking for.

While the Stanford Invitational serves as an opportunity to rack up some fast times early in the outdoor season, for redshirt junior Mike Banks, it meant much more than that.

As the first leg of the NCAA Indoor Championship men’s distance medley relay came to a close, Georgetown was right where it wanted to be. Senior Matt Debole had just run one of the fastest 1200 meter legs in school history, splitting 2:54.7 and placing the Hoyas right behind top-seeded Texas.

While the track and field world may be eagerly anticipating the NCAA Indoor Championships this upcoming weekend, the performance of the Georgetown men’s track team at the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America (IC4A) Championships gave a glimpse of what the Hoyas are capable of as the indoor season comes to a close.