Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

CROSS COUNTRY | GU Primes For Nationals

Georgetown’s men’s and women’s cross country teams took another step toward their goal of peaking at the NCAA tournament, as the women took third place and the men finished in second place in the Big East championship in Louisville, Ky. this past weekend.

Villanova won both races by a large margin, but the results marked the ninth time in 10 years that the men have finished in the top two of the Big East.

The focus for both cross country teams this year has been progress. The regular season has simply been the means to improve in order to peak for the NCAA tournament.

“[Our place] shows we’re doing exactly what we wanted during this year,” Assistant Coach Michael Banks said. “We want to get better and better as the season goes and on and keep making process with our racing.”

The means for improvement has simply been competition. Racing experience has proved crucial for the younger members of the team.

“Even though it’s cross country, our guys have been learning to put together a race and execute a race plan,” Banks said. “For some guys it’s winning, for some guys it’s running a certain time, and for some guys it’s just scoring.”

Freshman John Murray has benefited from racing experience during the regular season, and he showed his improvement this weekend coming in as the Blue and Gray’s fifth-fastest runner and finishing 37th place overall.

“I was very pleased with Murray’s race,” Banks said. “He went out there and put himself right with the guys I told him to run with.”

Still, experience proved crucial for the Hoyas. Senior Mark Dennin finished seventh overall and first for Georgetown. Following Dennin were graduate student Alex Lundy and junior Andrew Springer, who finished in 15th and 16th place, respectively, and graduate student T.C. Lumbar, who came in 20th overall.

“Lundy, Springer, and T.C. all ran right behind their pack.” Banks said. “But [in] any other race they could have been right in front of their pack. Like I said, we’re going to keep getting better and having a shot at beating [Villanova] in regionals. They have a very talented and experienced team but we have a very good team as well.”

Looking forward, the Hoyas are focusing on NCAA regionals and then nationals.

“We’ve got to keep working hard like we have been,” Banks said. We aren’t where we want to be, we want to keep making progress, keep executing the race plan. Workouts will fine-tune us.”

But Banks doesn’t want to become too narrow-minded with the team’s approach to the cross country season. Because most cross country runners compete in both indoor and outdoor track later this year, Banks has to keep a perspective on what Georgetown wants to accomplish.

“The training we’ve done is going to pay off these next couple weeks, but I want to keep the bigger picture of outdoor track in May and June in mind,” Banks said. “We’re not going to sacrifice everything to have the best cross-country team we can [at the expense of track].”

On the women’s side, the team finished in third place behind Villanova and Providence in a very competitive top half of the conference. The Big East currently includes four of the top 10 and six of the top 25 teams in the country.

“I think, going into the Big East [championship], on any given day, any of the top five or six teams could have won,” Assistant Coach Chris Miltenberg said. “But on any given day, we could have run really well, like we did, and still finished in third.”

Senior Emily Infeld led the way for the Blue and Gray, finishing fifth overall. Junior Emily Jones finished in 13th while classmate Kirsten Kasper placed 15th. Freshman Katrina Coogan and Annamarie Maag came in 20th and 24th, respectively.

In only her second race of the season, Infeld made major strides coming off of a minor hip flexor injury. But Miltenberg was most impressed with Kasper’s performance.

“Kasper was one of the ones I was most excited about,” Miltenberg said. “She raced so confidently and assertively by the end of the race. It was a big step forward and it’s exactly what we needed from her.”

Over the next couple of weeks, the women, like the men, will turn their focus to regionals.

“The best way to race at nationals is to race hard at regionals,” Miltenberg said. “We’re going to keep emphasizing things we want to do in the race — we need to be assertive in the middle and competitive at the end.”

And with Villanova and West Virginia in Georgetown’s region, the race could very well echo the Big East championship this weekend. But despite the third-place finish for a team that had lofty pre-season expectations, Miltenberg is convinced the team is on the right track, primed to peak at the national championship.

“Things are coming together even more than they look on paper,” Miltenberg said. “We’ve endured a lot of ups and downs, and I’m really proud of how these girls handled it.”

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