Running wild: Bulldogs aim for nationals

After a top finish at Heps, women's cross country has some big plans for the future.

"What muscles other than those that surround the mandible are you working right now?" Women's Cross Country Coach Mark Young, ES '68, strides across the IMs field toward two stragglers. The rest of the team is bundled up in long-sleeve tees and sweat-stained sweats, running tights, and GoreTex pants as they bounce through quickness and stretching drills before their final hard speed workout of the season.

Young is joking, but he's also serious. It's a chilly, windy Wednesday afternoon and getting darker by the minute, and he doesn't want anybody pulling anything, or any distractions from the task at hand—this team is just too good.

Now a little looser, 20-odd runners step up to the imaginary line, five at a time, every five seconds at Young's command. They run a width of the field, then hang a left and run a length—400 meters in all. Seventy seconds of jogging in place and back they come, as Young and Assistant Coach Christi Ireland squint to make them out in the dusk.

The first group of five is almost home now, and though this exercise is only at a moderate pace (there are six more still to come), you can see them spreading out just a little. Katie Rigney, JE '01, has a foot on Lindsay Mitchell, CC '03, who in turn has a step on the O'Neill twins (Kate, TD '03, and Laura, TC '03) and Katherine LaFrance, TC '01.

As the repetitions and pace pick up, the layers come off, and the once-small gaps widen to feet. Rigney and Mitchell, middle-distance runners during the track season, eat up ground in large swoops, while LaFrance and the O'Neills nibble away more efficiently—they're built for distance, not sprints. Still, despite their stylistic differences, the five finish within a second or two of one another. They're a pack of five, not just five in a row. They're the five who—with Amanda Brewster, BR '03, and Rebecca Hunter, JE '04—make up Yale's best team. They're the sevenwho are the best in the Ivy League, who are ranked No. 12 in the nation, and who may be even better than that.

Pack attack

Heps took place at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, the last stop on New York's 1/9 subway line. Adjacent to a cacophonous stretch of Broadway and serviced by only a few grotesque public bathrooms, Van Cortlandt is rife with distraction—even cricket and rugby on the weekend. But on this Friday afternoon, there was nothing but an under-10 girls soccer game for a sideshow. So the team began its usual warm-up: jogging, quick strides at the line, a "Go Yale!" cheer. They focused one last time on race strategy—pack strategy. "Go out strong but not reckless," Young explained. "Get strong in the second mile."

Then, the gun, and the 78 runners broke out of their chalked boxes, down Broadway and around the open field called the Flats for a half mile, and then into the woods and hills, onto the Cow Path. Usually, Yale's top five stick together for a mile, but this time, Kate, often their best runner, hung back because of an illness that had forced her to miss a week of training. The team didn't want to go out recklessly, but perhaps this time they weren't going hard enough. "The front of the race kind of got away from us," Rigney said. "That was a little worrisome."

Once on to the Cow Path, the race began to spread out a little, with the poseurs falling apart on the small hills (LaFrance: "There was a Princeton woman. You could almost see her give up.") and two Brown women taking the lead. The racers hustled up the short but steep Freshman Hill and turned right, into the Back Hills, the deadly two-kilometer center of the 5-K (3.1 mile) course. Nancy Wolcott, BR '01, Yale's captain, and a top-seven runner until she broke her hand, stood at the top of the first hill. "They were actually a little farther behind than I thought they'd be," she said.

W. X-Country

Recent Results: First at Heptagonals Coming Up: District qualifier at Van Cortlandt Park, New York City on Sat., Nov. 11

But the Yale pack held and picked people off one-by-one, and Kate felt good enough to make up the ground she had given up early. Even though the Brown group had gotten away, the group never cracked, and when they reached the top of the Back Hills about two miles into the race—where, as Kate put it, "you bring the hammer down"—they slammed down harder than they had all season.

"What's so great about this team is that when you see one blue, you know there are six more soon to follow," Ireland smiled. And despite the case of nerves brought on by relinquishing the individual lead, a whole lot of blue came barrelling down Broadway one after the other. Both sides of the path were lined with alumni, family, and friends— screaming.

Sweet Success

For some, the celebration had a historic feel. Laura spoke of an older man who congratulated them on their win. "I've been waiting for Yale to do this for a long time," he said." Who is he? "His daughter came to Yale the first year they didn't win Heps," O'Neill said. "She graduated seven years ago and he still comes back to watch."

For the seniors, though, just three years of false starts made the victory all the sweeter. According to Wolcott, the team showed great promise her freshman year, "but something happened and we just flopped at Heps," finishing fourth. Then, in 1998, "We said, this is really our season. But our best runner's heart wasn't in it. She was just a pair of legs." Despite Ariana Kelly's, MC '99, amazing season, including a victory at the NCAA district qualifiers, the team finished seventh at Heps. Last year, the same runners that make up this year's top five started strong but tailed off into another seventh.

No team has ever gone from seventh to first in consecutive seasons. However, a strong showing at last spring's indoor track Heps proved its potential, and its shocking second-place finish against nationally-ranked opponents at Minnesota's Ray Griak Invitational only confirmed what its runners already knew—Yale could go far if it didn't self-destruct. Hunter, the top seven's sole frosh, came to Yale with no idea of the team's goals. But, she said, "It was made clear from the very first day that the team wanted to do amazing things, like try to qualify for nationals."

Iowa or bust

Now the team turns its attention to nationals. District qualifiers are on Sat., Nov. 11, and nationals are on Mon., Nov. 20 in Iowa. ECAC Championships, meanwhile, take place on Sat. Nov. 18, but to the team they'd be poor consolation if it didn't qualify for Nationals. "We're hoping not to make ECACs," Brewster said.

Districts will be run in Van Cortlandt, but on a spectator-friendly course that eliminates the isolated Back Hills and replaces them with two extra loops of the easy Cow Path and Freshman Hill combo, as well as tacking on an extra kilometer. "It's unimaginative," Young griped. "It's not a cross country course." The reworking favors strength over distance rather than strength over hills, but Minnesota's six kilometers treated Yale well, and the team is confident. Mitchell even knows whom she wants: "I'm focusing on a particular girl on Brown's team, Rosie something-or-other." Does Mitchell know what she looks like? "I know what the back of her looks like."

Yale needs a top-two finish for an automatic nationals qualifier, and in their district, only Boston College (BC) has a higher ranking (Yale is No. 12 in the most recent NCAA coach's poll, though two computer rankings have it at No. 7 or 8, just ahead or behind BC). Anyway, Young said, "As a practical matter, because we've run as well as we've run, even if we're third we'll almost certainly go."

From seventh at Heps to seventh in the nation? A coaching masterpiece? No, Young said, "Their success is attributable almost entirely to them. I can't call a timeout and draw up X's and O's. You gotta go do 5-K. You gotta go do it by yourself. There's no help. There's no hiding."

Graphic by Shawn Cheng

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