October 27, 2011
This past weekend, both the men’s and women’s cross country teams ran in the New York State Collegiate Track Conference at St. Lawrence University. Unfortunately, the race proved more difficult than anticipated, with each team falling short of their ultimate goal of finishing first; the women placed 6th and the men placed 7th.
After five of the women’s top seven runners graduated last year, the young team has faced some obstacles that have kept them from fulfilling their full potential, one of them being coming out of the gates too slowly and spending the majority of the race catching up. As Hannah Lyons ’14 mentioned, “While we certainly have the talent to make up for this loss, we’re having trouble stepping up and filling those spots. I think a lot of us expect to see a teammate way out in front leading the pack, when in reality we should be the ones up there.”
The top five runners for the women’s team were separated by a mere 29 seconds during their 5 km run. The women’s cross country team placed 6th out of 10 teams at the New York State Collegiate Track Conference. Senior Sara Scheineson led the team, finishing 22nd out of 110 runners with a time of 20:29, just 1 minute and 41 seconds behind the winning time. Scheineson was followed by Lyons who was 26th in 20:31,.Krystina Choinski ’15 finished 35th in 20:44, Rachel Cackett ’13 ended 39th in 20:50 and Emily Banzer ’15 completed Hamilton’s top five placing 43rd with a time of 20:56.
Although it was a difficult weekend running the 8km at the NYSCTC for the men’s team as well, two of their top five runners made the NYSCTC all-conference team. Based on their successful performance, James Grebey ’12 and Hashem Zikry ’13 were amongst the top 21 runners, which got them named to the all-conference team. Grebey impressively finished the race sixth out of 112 runners with a time of 25:58, securing him a spot on the first-team all-conference team. Zikry earned a place on the third team, finishing 19th in 26:58. The other top runners for Hamilton consisted of Benjamin Yeo ’14 finishing 43rd at 27:43, Robert Woodworth ’13 placing 64th in 28:20 and Robert Hayden ’14 finishing 70th in 28:20.
Both teams view this past weekend as a learning experience that will help them prepare for the NESCAC Championship, which is being held at Amherst College this upcoming weekend, and the NCAA Division III Atlantic Regional Championship, which will take place at St. Lawrence University on Nov.12th.