Cross Country team has respectable finish

Last Friday the Yeomen double knotted their laces and ran.

The Yeomen and Yeowomen took to a field of eight other teams at the Allegheny Classic in Pennsylvania. In their second meet of the season, Oberlin's women finished fourth with 97 points and the men finished sixth with 148.

Captain senior Harsha Thirumurthy, captain junior Lisa Mickley and sophomore Rebecca Grossman were sidelined with injuries.

Thirumurthy and Grossman are expected to be back on the team soon. Mickley went in for a bone scan because of a possible stress fracture in her foot. Luckily the scan was negative, so she is already back running with the team.

Even without last year's top returners, "The men and women both did a really good job," Assistant Coach Jen Sturges said.

The course through hills and woods on a narrow trail was a far cry from Oberlin's grassy North fields and more enjoyable according to first-year Beth Spalding.

First-year John Rogers put up another dazzling performance finishing fourth out of 84 runners with a time of 27:25 on the five-mile course.

"John Rogers established his ability to be a very strong runner in this race," Coach Tom Mulligan said.

"He was going damn fast," co-captain junior Katherine Jones said.

The next three Yeomen finished together with a pack of about a dozen runners. First-year David Bevacqua, captain senior Max Rankenburg and sophomore Colin Fishwick finished 27th, 30th, and 33rd respectively with times of 28:32, 28:37, 28:38.

"Dave, Colin and Max ran together and helped to push each other along," Mulligan said.

First-year Kristian Whitsett finished 69th to round out the Yeomen's top five.

Following Whitsett were seniors James Quinn and Noah Kraut, and sophomore Mark Sasaki.

On the women's team the first-years also lead the way.

First-years Jenni Huelsman and Spalding were at the head of the Yeowomen charge finishing 13th and 14th clocking in at 20:35 and 20:38 respectively.

Co-captain junior Rachael Sims placed 19th with a time of 20:54. Junior China Weber followed five seconds later to place 21st.

Jones rounded out the scoring five with a 30th-place finish and a time of 21:36.

Jones and first-year Ket Ashfield demonstrated the strategy and team work that occurs in a race, when they prevented a competitor from passing them on the trail which would only fit two abreast.

Ashfield took 35th in 21:51. First-year Alexis Olsho crossed the finish line in 22:36 to take 57th while first-year Jessica Kennedy wound up 78th, with a time of 23:49.

"I cannot wait till the whole team is better and healthy," Spalding said.

As the team enters a week off from meets, the team will be staying in good healthy by concentrating on basic things like getting enough sleep, a balanced diet, and plenty of studying.

"We need to do the little things, so we can continue to work hard," Mulligan said. "Getting enough rest, organizing your life so you can do all the things which are important to you. Little things matter in a big way when you look at the big picture.You can't go a day without making sure that those things are in balance."

For the next race, two weeks from now, the team will have new black uniforms and for colder races the team picked up polyproplene long-sleeve shirts and tights.

"Costs go up every year and budgets don't increase accordingly," Mulligan said. "We are still feeding athletes on a budget that was made 15 years ago."

Because the team couldn't make homemade uniforms, Mulligan cut cost by making his home-made energy drink and not buying extra power bars.

This week the team has a week off to practice and rest.