Women’s cross-country stormed to its first victory of the season after producing a convincing performance against Marist and Army last Friday at West Point, N.Y. The Red easily swept Marist, 15-50, and man handled Army, 17-46.
Cornell managed to collect four of the top five places, including a 1-2-3 finish, ensuring itself an automatic meet victory. Freshman Jessica Parrott endured and overcame the hill-ridden West Point terrain to earn an emphatic debut victory with a clocking of 18 minutes and 33 seconds.
“It was pretty exciting. It was a tough course and I didn’t really know what to expect from the other [competitors]. I’m happy with what we managed to achieve. This is going to help us build up to October’s Heptagonal championships,” enthused Parrott.
Sophomore Carlan Gray narrowly edged out junior Lena Mathews, in what turned out to be an amazing skirmish for second place – both finished in 18 minutes and 47 seconds. Right behind them in fifth place was freshman Aliza Cohen, who finished in 18:57 and rounding out the scoring for the Red was junior Halle Watson, who finished seventh in 19:03.
Even though the team was without co-captains Kim Chatman and Meredith Freimer, it still handled the imposing opposition with relative ease.
“Army posed a big threat, and had us worrying at times. Though I think that we handled the pressure pretty well,” remarked Gray.
The Red travel to Fordham on September 16th for its second meet of the season.
Archived article by Kris Rajan