The Boston University 2006 cross country campaign ended this weekend for the women’s and men’s teams at the NCAA Northeast Regional competition in Van Cortlandt Park, N.Y.
Well, almost.
Although neither team will advance to the next round, senior co-captain Marisa Ryan earned an opportunity to compete at the NCAA Championships in Terre Haute, Ind. on Nov. 20.
Ryan, whose final time of 21:24.3 landed her ninth overall, will be the lone Terrier representative in Terre Haute. The senior started the race aggressively, as encouraged by coach Bruce Lehane, but began to wane a bit toward the end, losing a few spots.
Last year, Ryan took 14th, and was nearly three seconds behind Boston College’s Mallory Champa. Even though Ryan improved five spots this year, she once again fell short of Champa (21:19.0), trailing the BC sophomore by five seconds. Champa’s seventh-place finish was the best run of the day for the regional champion Eagles.
The women ended Saturday’s contest sixth out of 41 teams. Although Lehane hoped for a top-three finish, he was pleased by his team’s performance at the competition.
“To be honest, sixth place down there is very credible. The people that ran I think competed hard and did a very good job representing the school well,” Lehane said. “When you put 41 teams out there and they’re tough teams and you beat 35 of them, you have to think, ‘Well, we were 35-5. That’s not bad.'”
Seniors Abbey Sadowski (22:23.6) and Jennifer Malenovsky (22:43.0) were the only other Terriers to crack the Top 50, finishing in 30th and 43rd, respectively. Sadowski, who shares captainship responsibility with Ryan, had a shortened window for training because of a sciatic nerve injury. According to Lehane, she was “only partially prepared,” but still “competed extremely well.”
Lehane noted that the course was in great shape, and ran “smoothly.” Since he was familiar with the course, he informed his team that it was crucial they had an effective start.
“We told them that we had to run aggressively, establishing a place early in the race,” the coach said. “It’s a tough course to pass, so we stressed the importance of digging in the whole way.”
Unfortunately for the men’s team, they could not obtain Lehane’s goal of breaking the Top 12, placing 15th overall. The Terriers were without senior Nick Goodman, who sprained his ankle prior to Saturday’s event. Goodman earned all-conference honors after taking fourth at the America East championships Oct. 28. According to Lehane, although Goodman’s absence definitely affected the team, the other runners ran well for their ability.
“Not having Nick hurt us a bit in the final placing. Still, I thought we went out and competed hard,” Lehane said. “This particular group is more of a track group than a distance group. We are feeling that through the season they made very good progress from start to finish.”
Leading the way for the Terriers was junior David Proctor (33:46.6), whose 71st finish was six better than senior teammate Phil Shaw (33:51.0). The team’s overall score of 442 was eight better than Quinnipiac University (450) and 13 better than Marist College (455). Despite not breaking the Top 12, Lehane was proud of his team’s performance at the championships.
“Compared to two years ago, we ran about 90 seconds quicker this time around,” Lehane said. “I think that where we finished was representative as to where we were as a team.”
Lehane acknowledged that the men’s team was composed primarily of mid-distance runners that were not built to run 10k races. He joked that the men “could fake it for a while, but 10k is a long distance for 800-meter runners.”
With both cross country seasons coming to an end, each program will have a week of low intensity training before beginning to train for the indoor season.
For the men’s team, Lehane said he will be much improved by the start of next season, but the women will have a tougher task of remaining at the top. With numerous contributing athletes graduating this year, the women’s team will have more of an obstacle to overcome next fall.