X-C finishes fifth, sixth in Centennial

The Johns Hopkins Men and Women's Cross Country teams competed in the Centennial Conference Championships held at DeSales University last Saturday.

The women placed fifth as a team, tying their second highest finish in Hopkins' history, improving upon last year's total by twelve points from 160 to 148 points. This improvement was enough to edge out Muhlenberg, which finished just behind the Blue Jays with 154 points in the field of ten schools. Dickinson, which had five of the top seven finishers, won the team title followed by Haverford, Gettysburg and Swarthmore.

The men pulled off a sixth place finish with 158 points as a team, falling short of rival Gettysburg by 33 points. The men's title was claimed by Haverford with Dickinson, Swarthmore, and Muhlenberg rounding out the top half of the conference. Both the men and women's teams had five runners in the top 50 overall, out of 95 finishers for the men's 8K and 100 runners for the women's 6K.

Freshman Jessie Lozier led the women, finishing in 24th place overall with a time of 26 minutes even. Right behind Lozier was senior Aline Bernard, whose time of 26:12 earned her 29th place.

Sophomore Gloria Vasconcellos placed 30th, coming in two seconds after Bernard. Senior Anna Stirgwolt placed 31st with a time of 26:19 and freshman Jenni Wakeman finished out the top five Blue Jay runners with a time of 27:04 for 41st place.

"All the women on the team ran an outstanding race. They stuck to the game plan and did what they needed to secure 5th place," said head coach Bobby Van Allen. "We knew we didn't have any standouts that were going to be in the top 10, so we ran as a team and tried to pack as many girls together around 20th place. Our top four girls finished within 19 seconds of each other. We came up a little short of cracking into the top 4, but the girls went after it," said Van Allen. "I knew they gave absolutely everything they possibly had and I couldn't have been more proud of the way they ran that race. We will continue to improve and continue to move up through the conference ranks. We will stick to the same game plan for our next meet, the NCAA Mideast regional and hopefully we can be in the top 10 (out of 40 teams in the region)," said Van Allen.

While the men didn't have the same success as the women, they still performed well. "Our team has definitely become faster and more unified in the past year, yet unfortunately we still weren't able to reach the ranking we were shooting for. However, we realize we have a lot of potential for the next few years, and we're planning on building up the team greatly," said sophomore Andrew Bauerschmidt.

Freshmen Travis Koh was the top finisher for Hopkins, placing 28th with a time of 28:58.

"We followed coach's strategy, which was to pack the team up together. Unfortunately, our pack just finished too far back. Our whole team took it out too fast, and the hills and heat took their toll on us," said Koh.

Second for Hopkins was sophomore Gabe Tonkin, whose time of 29:19 earned him 34th place. Bauerschmidt was the next finisher, three seconds behind Tokin for a 35th place finish overall. Freshman Jason Chiang finished two runners behind Bauerschmidt with a time of 29:25. Junior Eric Scrivner rounded out the top five Blue Jays with a time of 30:07, good for 49th overall.

"It was a fast first mile, but overall, a slow course. It was an unseasonably warm day, which affected a lot of runners. In fact the number one guy from Haverford went down before finishing the race and needed medical attention," said Scrivner.

"The men, inspired by the way the women ran, got out perfectly. By the mile point, we had 5 guys running strong together up in the top 30 of the race," said Van Allen. "Many of the guys ran a strong race, and we are excited about the future of this team with seven of our top eight guys being freshman and sophomores. Our guys wanted to go after Gettysburg, and we were closer on Saturday to beating them than we have been all year. We have one more chance to beat these guys, and I know this team will do whatever they can to accomplish that task at the regional meet," said Van Allen.

The Regional Championships will be held on Nov. 15.