Cross country began its season in Rochester on Saturday, Sept. 28 at the Harry F. Anderson Invitational, collecting first place and top-ten individual finishes for the men’s and women’s teams. The men’s race was eight kilometers, while the women’s race was five kilometers.
The men’s team swept the top three: senior Derek Amicon (first, 24:10.4), senior Damian Hackett (second, 24:10.4) and sophomore Pierre-Antoine Attiogbe (third, 24:10.7). The runners crossed the finish line within the same quarter-second.
“The whole point of this race was to see how strong we are as a team and show our depth,.” Amicon said. “A big stat to look at is that we had eight people under 25 minutes on a tough course which is a really strong showing, especially for an early season meet without a ton of competition.”
Additionally, Cornell saw five other runners finishing in the top ten: Aryan Abbaraju (sixth, 24:48.4), Jake Gelfand (seventh, 24:49.9), Ryan Johnson (eighth, 24:50.0), Peyton Shute (ninth, 24:51.4) and Matthew O’Brien (10th, 24:52.0).
Amicon said that the 8K course in Rochester, New York proved to be a more difficult terrain.
“It was a harder course, so it was sometimes hard to pull off the ‘working together’ part, but it seems like most people had a very strong meet,” Amicon said.
In the women’s race, Cornell had nine top-ten finishers. Senior Augustine Haquet (17:12.5) and junior Mairead Clas (17:24.7) finished first and second, respectively. Including senior Margaret Dalseth (4th, 17:48.0) and senior Bridget Forbes (5th, 17:57.8), five runners finished under the 18-minute mark.
As the first one of the year, the meet was an opportunity to measure the current strength of the team.
“Everyone had a really good track season last year and so we just really wanted to see where the momentum was going to take us,” Haquet said.
The 5K course for the women was also a bit harder to navigate at first, but the runners adapted and ran in packs, pushing each other through it.
“This is what cross country is all about,” Mairead said. “Those adaptations you have to make and things that aren’t expected, and trying to react in the best way.” The course had many turns, so the runners had to constantly stay alert and ready to react.
Cornell will travel to Bethlemen, Pennsylvania on Saturday, Oct. 5, to compete in the Paul Short Run at Lehigh University. The spread of teams will include schools in The Ivy League, notably Harvard and Princeton, who are ranked at the top of the league.
“It will definitely be a change from last week but we’re really excited to race against a couple of schools in the league for the first time and see how we compete with them,” Mairead said.
The meet will pose a bigger challenge for the Red, but the team is looking strong and the runners are ready to take on the season.
“As a team, we’re really excited for the returners,” Haquet said. We have a lot of returning talent as well as a really talented group of freshmen, so it should be a really exciting season.”
Avery Sohn is a Sun Contributor and can be reached at [email protected].