Courtesy Alison Wade/New York Road Runners The Georgetown Women’s Cross Country team enters the season ranked second in the nation and looks to win the program’s first national title in 2002.
Success breeds expectations, and for the Georgetown’s women’s cross country program, the accomplishments of 2001 have placed the team squarely in the middle of this season’s national championship picture.
The preseason coaches’ poll ranks the Hoyas No. 2 behind defending national champion Brigham Young, and Georgetown returns its entire roster from last season. With another year of training under its belt and time for injuries to heal, this year’s group is expected to finish as one of the greatest teams in school history.
“I think there are a lot of high expectations based on where we’re ranked,” senior co-captain Erin Sicher said. “We got third last year with an unbelievably young and inexperienced team. This season, it’s excellent that we have everyone coming back, and we even have new people stepping up into our top seven, which is going to sort of toss things up a little. I think that’s going to cause us all to become more competitive with ourselves and strive to do our best.”
“Some people really did their homework over the summer, that’s for sure,” Assistant Coach Juli Henner said. “I’ve been very impressed so far, but I don’t like to speculate about the future or other teams, because we can’t control that. All we can really control are our own girls, what we do with them and how they handle themselves. That’s all the girls can control, also.”
With all seven runners returning, the outlook for the season seems extraordinarily bright. But as the saying goes, past performance may not be indicative of future results.
“The critical issue to understand is that just because we’re returning seven from last year, it’s a completely new and different challenge,” Director of Track and Field and Cross Country Ron Helmer said. “Some of those girls will step up and really take a big step forward, and perhaps others won’t. And the challenge for us is to be sure that the pecking order that we established last year is thrown out the window, and everybody takes a new and fresh approach to things in terms of what their individual goals are, and where they may end up ultimately contributing to the team. Then for us, it’s a matter of keeping each individual moving forward, and then at the right moment, gradually starting to assemble those individuals and put together a team that can run in November.”
Last year, the team conquered early skepticism and a No. 11 preseason ranking by tying a school record with a third place finish at nationals. The mark extended Georgetown’s streak of finishing in the nation’s top-10 to 14 years. This season, the team looks to continue its legacy, but a No. 2 preseason ranking puts Georgetown in a completely different position relative to 2001.
“There are definitely people that are getting ready to run, just like we are, and we’re more like targets now than before,” senior All-American Jill Laurendeau said. “But even though we came in third last year and are returning the top seven, we’re not taking things lightly.”
“Last year we were kind of unknown,” senior co-captain Marni Kruppa said. “I just want to, as a team, put all the pieces together in late November, and hopefully that will mean we place as high or higher than we did last year. Because I definitely think we have the talent to do that.”
After completing spectacular junior-year campaigns, Laurendeau and Kruppa are expected to lead the charge in 2002.
Laurendeau was the top finisher for the team at last year’s cross country nationals, placing 14th overall, and subsequently followed that performance with extraordinary success on the track, placing eighth in the mile and seventh in the distance medley relay, to close out the year with three All-American certificates.
Kruppa, a three-time All-American in her own right, placed 37th at cross country nationals, and ran an NCAA automatic qualifying time of 33:43.72 in the 10,000m at Stanford. Also qualifying in the 5,000m and winning the Big East 10,000m championship for the second consecutive year, Kruppa earned the title of 2001-02 NCAA id-Atlantic Region Runner of the Year.
While Kruppa and Laurendeau are among the nation’s premiere returning tandems, what separates Georgetown from other teams is its amazing depth beyond its two frontrunners.
Senior Erin Sicher, junior Amanda Pape and sophomore Nicole Lee all scored for the Hoyas at nationals last season, and sophomore Jodee Adams-Moore and junior Colleen Kelly provided additional top-notch support.
With seniors Emily Reaman and Allison Snyder, juniors Treniere Clement, Sarah Scholl and Rose Wetzel, sophomore Kelley Otstott and freshmen Kim Malcolm, Sabine Knothe and Erin Henry backing up the returning seven, this year’s team is overflowing with talent.
“We’re deeper than we’ve ever been,” Helmer said. “It’s just a matter of preparing that depth so we can gradually keep shoving the level of performance up all the way through the ranks. And if we can pull that off, then we can be pretty good.”
“With the surprises we had last year, I wouldn’t count anyone out of being able to step in and help us this season,” Henner said.
The runners tend to agree.
“We have a lot of great people, and if something happens to someone in the top seven, there are runners waiting to step it up and take their place to help our team,” Kruppa said. “We have a lot of great freshmen who came in and who are in shape and ready to go, and we’ve got some upperclassmen who are waiting for their chances, too.”
Since the group that runs on Nov. 25 at nationals is yet to be determined, the regular season will serve as a means of selecting who will ultimately fill the seven starting spots. Early meets provide an opportunity for the coaches to evaluate incoming freshmen and gauge the progress the returning athletes made over the summer.
“I know that during the first couple of meets, we’re going to be on different schedules,” Sicher said. “Some people got a lot of training done over the summer, so they need to race more toward the beginning of the season, while other people, who were a little banged up over the summer, are going to wait until later in the season to start racing.”
The early meets allow young runners to gain valuable race experience, but many top returning athletes are expected to sit out the first few meets to continue their training uninterrupted. Under this approach, it’s possible the seven who line up at nationals won’t run together as a group until early November.
“We won the Big East championship last year, so we have to defend our title, and that’s when I think things will start to get serious,” Sicher said. “We have to be able to perform for nationals. In these first couple meets, we’re going to be very tired because we’ve been working out so hard, so I think our performance isn’t necessarily as important as getting the benefits of racing and working together as a team.”
“In the early meets, we just want to keep it low key,” Kruppa said. “Nobody really cares how you do in September. It doesn’t matter until you get on the line in late November at nationals.”
During her All-American cross country season her sophomore year, Kruppa didn’t race until a week before nationals at the id-Atlantic Regionals. In 2001, Kruppa sat out the first three meets of the season before claiming a second place finish at pre-nationals. This year, it is likely Kruppa won’t step onto a course until Nov. 1 at the Big East Championships.
“Runners like Marni can just train and show up ready to race,” Laurendeau said. “Other people, like me or Erin Sicher, need to be out there racing more to get practice and prepare our bodies for the real deal.”
So without stars like Kruppa competing at meets such as the Great American Cross Country Festival on Sept. 27, where the Hoyas will square off against national powers Brigham Young, N.C. State and Arkansas, the team expects to slide in the polls as the season progresses. But as long as the goal of reaching an optimal level of fitness for nationals is materialized, the tactical approach to the regular season will have been a complete success.
“I don’t really even look at [the polls],” Henner said. “It’s just something that’s not in our control. All we can do is the best we can do, and worry about ourselves. I want to concentrate on the girls’ training and not worry about anything else. We’ll let our legs do the talking in November.”
