KENOSHA, Wis. – Cross country is the epitome of a team sport. A squad needs all five scorers to have solid races to perform to its potential; one sub-par performance can negate three or four good efforts. This past weekend at the Big East championship, the Georgetown men’s cross country team fell victim to such a scenario, as their lack of a strong fifth runner derailed the team’s hopes of repeating as champions.

Georgetown came into this past Saturday’s meet at the Wayne E. Dannehl cross country course in Kenosha, Wis., having dominated the conference a year ago. A much improved No. 14 Syracuse team posed the biggest threat for upsetting the defending champion Hoyas, having knocked off the Blue and Gray at the Wisconsin Adidas Invitational earlier in the season.

The Hoyas and the rest of the field went up against more than just the Orange, however, as Mother Nature proved to be less than forgiving. The course was extremely wet and muddy from a rainy month, capped off by nearly an inch of rain the day before. The temperature hovered around 40 degrees, and wind gusts were upwards of 30 miles per hour.

“[They were] probably the worst conditions I’ve ever had a team run in,” Head Coach Pat Henner said. “I definitely think it affected everybody to a certain extent.”

Showing that they would not let the mud, cold or wind slow them down, redshirt seniors Andrew Bumbalough, the defending Big East individual champion, and Mike Krisch along with redshirt freshman Mark Dennin led the way for the Hoyas early on, cementing themselves at the front of the pack.

With the mud preventing anybody from pulling away in the beginning portions of the race, the lead pack remained quite large, with about 15 or so runners hanging tough through the 5-kilometer mark.

After cresting a large hill a little before the 6K mark, however, Louisville senior Cory Thorne picked up the pace in an attempt to break from the pack. Bumbalough, Krisch and two or three others went with Thorne. Then, with less than a mile to go, the pack had whittled to just Bumbalough, Thorne and Villanova redshirt freshman Mathew Mildenhall.

As the trio came upon another hill before a wooded section of the course, with about 1000 meters to go, Thorne made another decisive move to which Bumbalough could not respond.

“During that section, I just kind of felt the life sucked out of me sort of,” Bumbalough said. “I just really found myself sliding around, and just didn’t really feel like I could do anything, almost helpless like I was getting sucked down a little bit.”

Bumbalough recovered in the final straightaway to make a move on a fading Mildenhall in second, but came up just a few meters short to finish third overall in 24 minutes, 47 seconds.

“I thought [Bumbalough] did a great job,” Henner said. “I don’t want to make excuses for anybody, but if you pick probably the worst conditions that would affect him, I’d say it’s this. [With] the mud and muck he [could not] use his great assets, which are his rhythm running and his speed.”

Krisch held tough over the final portion of the race, giving the Hoyas their second finisher in the top 5, as he took fifth overall in 24:56. Having been a little banged up throughout last year, he said it felt great to feel 100 percent.

“It was great, just being healthy, knowing that you have everything,” he said. “Personally, it felt great to be able to race with the people that I know I should be running with.”

Dennin, who has been one of the most consistent performers on the year thus far, continued to run strong after the pack strung out a little bit, fighting to give the Hoyas yet another low score as he finished eighth in 25:42.

After Dennin, the Hoyas looked to be in trouble, as a pack of six Syracuse runners had been running between 10th and 20th places throughout most of the race. Redshirt senior Mike Banks was the only other Hoya who was running where he needed to be, with a number of Hoyas further back. Banks went on to finish 20th in 25:41, but the Hoyas were still looking for their fifth runner to cross the line.

Redshirt senior Levi Miller, who has struggled to find his form since the end of the cross country season a year ago, looked good early on in the race, but then fell way back at the 5K mark. Miller moved up significantly over the last portion of the race, being as far back as 37th with a little less than a mile to go and finishing 25th.

For Miller and the Hoyas, it was too little, too late, as the Orange put six runners between 11th and 18th place to best the Hoyas by a score of 55 to 61. It was Syracuse’s first Big East championship in program history.

“It’s kind of heartbreaking to not go out as Big East champions again,” Banks, who came back for a sixth year of running at Georgetown and has seen five Big East runner-up finishes, said. “We knew it was going to be a battle – they’re a very good team.”

Added Henner: “It was very disappointing. If we just had one other guy with Banks at half way through, we would have had a chance to win or at least make it even closer than it was. I mean, six points is pretty close.”

For Miller, who was a cross country All-American in 2008 and who expected to be a key component to the Hoyas’ success this season, there was little doubt that he could have been the difference.

“Overall it’s disappointing, not to sugarcoat it or anything,” Miller said. “If I would have had a better race, we would have won.”

Despite the failure to repeat, there were quite a few positives that the Hoyas could take away from the race as they look forward to the rest of the postseason. For one, the Hoyas have shown that they have three runners who can notch low scores in Bumbalough, Krisch and Dennin. Moreover, despite being farther back than they would have liked, the runners in the back end of the Hoya pack competed well over the last 2 kilometers of the course, showing their fitness.

“I’m as confident as ever that we can have a really good NCAA team,” Henner said. “We can put three guys way up there, and have two solid races and [then] we’re pretty good.”

Added Bumbalough: “We have a lot of veterans on this team, and there’s no reason why – through all of the experiences we’ve all had – there’s no reason that all five of us can’t get it done on the right day.”

On the women’s side, the Hoyas ran solid across the board, but with the Big East being the deepest conference in the country, No. 9 Georgetown finished fourth overall, behind No. 2 Villanova, No. 4 West Virginia and No. 10 Syracuse.

As with the men, the loss to the Orange hurt the most, as it was a team the Hoyas were hoping to beat and have an opportunity at an at-large point that would have helped their chances to qualify for Nationals.

Sophomore Emily Infeld led the way for the Hoyas by finishing third in 21:04, showing yet again how much she has matured in cross country over the past year. Infeld threw herself right up there with the leaders from the get go, racing against some of Villanova and West Virginia’s best runners. Infeld went with Villanova’s redshirt sophomore Sheila Reid and junior Amanda Marino, who separated themselves from the pack, and hung around until about the 4K mark until the duo pulled away.

From finishing 15th a year ago at the same meet, Infeld can tell that she’s definitely been making progress in cross country, regardless of the fact that middle distance track events are her forte.

“I was really happy,” Infeld said. “I feel like I’m starting to like cross country a lot more. I was just happy that I did well.”

Coming next for the Hoyas was fellow sophomore Katie McCafferty, who ran well and moved up significantly over the second half of the race to finish 17th in 21:53. McCafferty, who had a serious case of bronchitis last spring that lingered late into the summer, was perhaps the biggest bright spot for the Hoyas, as she showed that she has nearly regained her 2008 form.

“I just tried to pick people off,” she said. “No matter how tough it feels, that’s always my thing … that I know every place is going to count. So as many people as I can [pass], I have to get them.”

Freshman Emily Jones, who had been solid for the Hoyas so far, looked good early on, sitting around ninth or 10th place through 2 kilometers of the 6K course. Throughout the middle portion of the race, however, Jones started to slip back in the field. Though she fought hard at the end, she finished farther back than the Hoyas had hoped, at 19th overall.

“I think this was a great learning experience for Emily, running in her first Big Easts,” Miltenberg said. “She probably relaxed too much in the middle of the race, but I’m confident that she’s going to bounce back.”

Rounding out the top five for the Hoyas were redshirt senior Natasha LaBeaud, who stayed consistent throughout the race and finished 24th, and freshman Kirsten Kasper, who ran gutsy over the second half of the race to move up double-digit places and finish 29th.

Overall, the Hoyas’ 92 points fell just shy of third place Syracuse’s 84, which had a solid pack come in around the teens to upset the Blue and Gray.

“It’s certainly disappointing,” Miltenberg said. “We knew coming in that this was the best conference in the country. [It] turned out that today, Syracuse was the better team. They showed their depth with their pack – they beat us at our own game.”

While the Hoyas could get help down the road from one of the various upperclassmen struggling through injuries, it is looking more and more like the Hoyas will have to rely on the five who scored at both pre-nationals and the Big East.

Senior Lauren Gregory went down shortly after pre-nationals with a foot injury, and it is uncertain whether she will return to form for regionals or nationals. Senior Renee Tomlin will officially be redshirting this cross country season as she comes back from a stress fracture, and redshirt seniors Lise and Avril Ogrodnick have both yet to see action this fall due to injuries as well.

Regardless of the team’s youth, Miltenberg is confident that the team he has been racing as of late can perform at a high level come Regionals and, hopefully, NCAAs.

“This very well could be our five, and if this is our five, I’m very confident in this group,” he said.

The Hoyas return to action at the mid-atlantic regional in two weeks in their final meet before the NCAA National Championship at the end of this month. “