On Oct. 5, the Hopkins men’s and women’s cross country teams competed at the Paul Short Run and both turned in impressive performances. It was both team’s first “Résumé-Eligible” race of the season. “It was a tough start having this race be our first Resume-eligible race, we dropped several spots in the rankings. But we’re definitely looking forward to surprising everyone when the post season rolls around,” sophomore Billy Scola said.
The event, hosted by Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., was a 6K race that featured prominent Division I opponents, such as Brown, Penn, Maryland and Navy.
Despite the competition, Hopkins was not phased.
The women finished in 15th place, while the men finished in 37th place in Bethlehem to complete a hard fought weekend. Prior to the Run, the Hopkins women’s team retained their spot at the top of the national rankings, while the men’s team moved up to 19th in the nation and fourth in the Mideast region.
The women were led this weekend by sophomore Hannah Oneda. The sophomore finished in 39th place at the Paul Short Run with a time of 21:17 — her third-best finish in a 6K event as a Lady Jay. After last season’s strong performance, Oneda is gearing up for another memorable year. “Our team did incredible with the magnitude of competition we faced, even without our full top seven running this weekend,” Oneda said. “We are so excited to do great things again this year and we will look to build off our early momentum.”
Along with Oneda, the Lady Jays finished with two other top-75 runners for the event. Senior Holly Clarke came through with an impressive 61st place finish (21:30), and fellow senior Annie Monagle rounded out the group with a time of 21:37, which was good enough for 74th place at the event. Some other notable performers for the Lady Jays included Francis Loeb and Courtney Kelly. Loeb, a junior, came through with a 22:01 time, while Kelly, a sophomore, finished the race in 22:15.
The match was crucial for the women, as they look ahead to the championships next month.
The men’s team had a tougher time than the women this weekend, finishing Saturday in 37th place. Although the end result was not all they hoped for, it was an important learning day for the team as they required new faces to step up and fill voids left by key members of the team.
Senior Max Robinson led all Centennial Conference runners at the event, as he set his own personal record with a time of 24:54. He finished 56th out of all of the runners, but even more eye-popping was his third place finish among Division III runners.
Scola commented on the tough competition this weekend. “Paul Short provided an unexpected challenge for our runners this weekend. With temperatures in the high 80s and low 90s, and humidity at 95 percent, race conditions were far from ideal,” Scola said. “The mens’ team was racing without two of its top five runners, Julian Saliani and Schaffer Ochstein, which only added to the challenge. It was definitely not our best race, but everyone did a good job of being prepared and racing to their potential given the unseasonably warm conditions. We’re looking forward to these next four weeks of training, before the Centennial Conference Championships on Nov. 2 and hoping to really ramp up our potential going into the post season.”
Four other runners turned in solid performances for the Jays. Junior Austin Stecklair, senior Ryan Alvarez, freshman Stefan Arnold and junior Andrew Ceruzzi all followed Robinson’s lead by helping the Jays out. The four would finish the day individually with times between 26:16-26:38. Stecklair led the grouping, while Arnold gave himself a performance to build upon in his young career.
Although the end result was not what the men were hoping for, they have four weeks to work out any issues discovered in the race.
Next month, the men’s championships will be held, as the men try to follow the lead of the women and bring their own glory back to Baltimore in the form of a championship trophy. In order to prepare for the championships, both the men and the women will head to Christopher Newport on Oct. 19 for a meeting with south region teams. This event will be a great experience for the teams, as they gear up for what is expected to be an exciting and successful trip to Centennial Conference Championships.
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