Women’s XC cruises to victory in Annapolis

This past Saturday, the women’s cross country team continued its impressive season at the Salty Dog Invitational hosted by the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. Led by junior Sophia Meehan, senior Frances Loeb and freshman Bridget Gottlieb, the Lady Jays placed five runners in the top ten and cruised to a first-place finish over a field filled with many well-established Maryland teams such as Navy and UMBC.

This race marks the second meet of the year for the Lady Jays as they begin their campaign towards the NCAA XC national championship in November. Coming off back-to-back national championships over the past two seasons, the Lady Jays entered this season with high expectations, and it certainly showed this weekend. After leading the field through the first mile, Meehan and Loeb separated themselves from the pack and blazed through the second half of the course. Meehan would eventually win the race in a time of 21:53.65 with Loeb right behind her (22:04.85).

“I was really happy with the outcome of the race," Sophia Meehan said. "It was a tough course with tough competition, and the girls handled both really well. I was very excited to have my first win and to lead our team to win the meet overall."

Sophomore Tess Meehan (22:44.34), senior Ashley Murphy (22:52.53), senior Abby Flock (23:15.43) and junior Courtney Kelly (23:29.11) rounded out the top seven finishers for Hopkins as the Lady Jays won the team championship over runner-up Navy with 24 points.

“All the girls performed beyond expectation,” Sophia Meehan added. “Tess and Bridget had a really outstanding day. Ashley Murphy, who just came back from an injury, also had a great race. Behind the top five, we had several girls close behind, which shows a lot of depth.”

The Navy Invitational serves as a stepping-stone for the women’s team as they prepare for the Boston College Invitational. This past race provided many of the Hopkins runners with an opportunity to put down an early season time as the team moves towards setting their final seven.

“We lost some great runners from last year, so there are definitely some gaps to fill," Sophia Meehan said. "We have two freshmen, Bridget and Kyra Meko, who have a lot of potential. We also have a lot of girls who have really improved from last year, such as Tess Meehan, [junior] Caroline Powers and [senior] Grace Hancock. This weekend, a lot of the girls had great races and proved there is a lot of strong competition for the three through seven spots of varsity. With about eight to 10 girls competing for about five spots, we should have a very talented and hard-working team, from one to seven."

The Boston College Invitational, known as the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown, is one of the largest cross-country meets held on the East Coast and features some of the best talent in the country. The Lady Jays will take to the course against some of the top collegiate programs. Loeb believes the team has what it takes to compete with the big name D-I teams and that they showed it this weekend.

“Our team's goals for the year are to win nationals for the third time in a row, to have as many girls earn All-American as possible and to compete hard, improve and beat some of the bigger, top D-I competition," Loeb said. "This weekend was a great step in the right direction for accomplishing our goals this season. It was fun to come out and beat some big D-I programs by so much [like] Navy, Richmond, Maryland and American."

Boston will certainly provide that kind of competition with teams such as reigning NCAA XC champions Providence and perennial powerhouse Oregon in attendance. But the women’s cross country team has never been one to shy away from the limelight.

“[The girls are] looking forward to having more competition at Boston coming up and seeing how many of these top D-I schools we can beat or compete well with," Loeb said.