By Dwayne Dahlbeck
Going into Friday’s New England Championships at Franklin Park, both the men’s and women’s cross country teams were coming off big finishes the previous weekend. The men had placed second and the women first at the Fairfield Invitational last Friday.
Last weekend, against stiffer competition, the women were able to run with the pack while the men could only look on as the pack ran by.
The women’s team of Amy Hicks, Meaghan Shaw, Amber Cullen, Lindsay Harris, Emily Watson, Erin Ballard, and Erica Riecke finished 16th in a field of 42 teams. Freshman Hicks’ time of 18:50 was good for 56th overall and tops on the team, only a second better than senior Shaw. Cullen’s time of 18:53 rounded out Northeastern finishers in the top 100 (63rd). Boston College finished first with 70 points, including the first and second overall finishers. It was the third straight first-place finish this year for the fifth-ranked Eagles.
After the meet, cross-country coordinator Richard Hart praised the improvement of the women’s team saying, “Our goal was to decrease team score by 500 points from last year’s 33rd place finish [in the NEC]. Not only did we do that, but we moved into the top half. We haven’t had one woman under 19:00 in the last four years; on Friday, we had three kids and the next three were very close. We’re knocking on the door of some of the better New England programs.”
Hart went on to praise Hicks’ running saying “She’s getting stronger. This is the third straight meet where she’s run faster than ever before and she’s not even 18 yet.”
Meaghan Shaw was also quick to praise the continued improvement of Hicks.
“Amy’s run unbelievably the last few meets and you can really see it in practice how much she’s improved since the beginning of the year,” she said.
The men have a promising freshman of their own in Jim Richard. Richard finished first on the team and 193rd overall with a time of 26:57. He was among six Huskies who set personal best times at Franklin Park. Also finishing with personal bests on their home turf were Jon Litchfield (27:08), Tom Pratt (27:17), Jared Paul (27:23), and Terry Dougherty (27:44).
Despite the personal achievements, the men were not able to keep up with a tough field. The Huskies finished 40th with 1,095 points in a field of 42 of the region’s best teams. Among them was a dominating Providence squad that was ranked 14th in the country and left the Huskies, like the rest of the competition, in the dust. The Friars finished first with 36 points and had three of the top four finishers overall. It marked Providence’s third straight New England title and its sixth in the last ten years. Brown came the closest to dethroning the Friars, finishing with 70 points, and was the only other team to finish with less than 100 points.
Hart was happy with the individuals, but not the team. “New England is a tough cross-country area so we have to get stronger to compete. We’re young and it’s tough for the freshmen to make the adjustment to running five miles instead of three like they ran in high school, but we’re making progress.”
Hart called this a “breakthrough race” for Richard. “He took charge, team-wise, the last two miles. He runs real strong in practices and it really paid off,” Hart said.
Both the men and the women will be back in action Saturday at the 36th Albany Invitational at the University of Albany in New York. Coach Hart said he was excited about the meet and said it should be a good preview of the conference, since a lot of the conference teams should be there.
