Cross country team will test out new blood

Today six men and five women are racing for the first time in an Oberlin uniform as the cross country team begins its season against the College of Wooster. This is the first and only home meet for cross country this year .

The teams began pre-season training the week of Aug. 19 at Glenn Arbor, MI.

Saturday, Aug. 30, the cross country team held their annual time trials, in which 11 women and nine men made the cut, and one women will hopefully make the cut Saturday.

The new crop of runners will replace the top runners from last year's teams. Conference champion Shannon Fox and captain Kit Wells, a ninth place finisher at conference, graduated in June. Conference second-place finisher Alex Dawe is ineligible as a fifth year double-degree student, but is helping out with the team.

For most of September both teams will be competing without their top runners, senior Harsha Thirumurthy and sophomore Rebecca Grossman. Thirumurthy suffers from a stress fracture in his left ankle and Grossman has a broken toe.

The men's team now has eight healthy runners, including sophomore Colin Fishwick and senior Max Rankenburg. Rankenburg and Fishwick are running really well and are expected to provide strong leadership to their teammates, according to Head Coach Tom Mulligan.

"The new runners are going to help us out a lot, do a lot for us," Fishwick said. "They are fast and work hard. It's a good thing we got them."

First-year John Rogers entertains his teammates with the game Botticelli, which they play while running. Named after the famous Renaissance painter, the game is a complex version of 20-questions based on trivia.

Rogers is very enthusiastic about the team and the season."With the way we work out and get along as a team, the future is pretty bright, " Rogers said.

On the women's side, the Yeowomen replace three graduating seniors: Fox, Amanda Gillespie, and Maggie Russell-Ciardi with the five first-years.

Mulligan expects all his healthy veterans to bring leadership to the team, including juniors Katie Jones, Rachel Sims, and China Weber, and sophomores Lisa Mickley and Alexis Olsho.

The returning veterans are expected to contriubute more to the team than they did last year.

"I feel good, both teams are working hard. It should be interesting come November," Mulligan said.