The cross country team competed at the Paul Short Invitational hosted by Lehigh University last Saturday, with the men competing in the 8K and women competing in the 6K races.
The men placed 13th out of 38 teams, led by senior Emil Arangala’s 17th-place finish with a 25:13.1 time.
“I didn’t know where I was,” Arangala said of his thought process while running. “I thought there were a bunch more people ahead of me.”
“I think that kind of just dragged me up,” he added about focusing on competitors from Colgate University and Holy Cross University.
Close behind Arangala was junior Justin Brown, whose 25:34.1 time earned him a 35th-place finish.
Brown said the team put up a “B” or “B minus” performance.
“It was good, but I think it’s still not really fully indicative of what we’re all capable of,” Brown said.
Coming off a tough outing against Lehigh, the team looked to put the loss in the rear-view mirror.
“I think that having meets like this is helpful to just remember that cross country is, at the bottom of it, an individual sport, but we are still a team,” Arangala said.
On the women’s side, the team placed 25th out of 35 teams, with senior Casey MacElhiney leading the charge for the Leopards with a 22:54.0 time for 71st place out of the nearly 300 runners.
“It wasn’t as important where we placed, but we did really well as a team,” MacElhiney said. “The spread of our times was a lot closer than it’s been and there were a lot of pretty big PRs.”
“In the past three meets, our top five scores have been different in all of them, so I think that shows a lot of depth in our team,” sophomore Ava Severino said.
As postseason play nears for the Maroon and White, the team looks to pivot from the training phases of its season.
“We’re feeling good, we all know that we’re in really, really good shape,” Brown said.
He added that the team is “excited” for a shift in their training “so we’ll be able to really, really attack those races.’”
The Leopards return to action at the ECAC/IC4A Championships in the Bronx, New York, on Oct. 18.
“I’m really excited to see how we do at leagues,” MacElhiney said. “With all of us getting closer together, it’s really important to pack up during the bigger meets, because it can really help our team score.”
A correction was made on October 18, 2024: A previous version of this article misspelled the name of Van Cortlandt Park in New York. It also implied the park was the name of a town in New York. It is a park in the Bronx, New York.
