Seniors enjoy final CC race at Regionals

For the last time, co-captain senior Harsha Thirumurthy and senior Trista Thornberry tackled a collegiate cross country track. Saturday at theMidwest Regional Meet at Terre Haute, Indiana,. the two ended their Oberlin cross country careers in style.

Two weeks ago the women's team qualified for the meet with a fourth place finish at Conference, while the men failed to qualify, although Thirumurthy and first-year John Rogers qualified individually.

The women finished 15th overall in the race out of 26 teams.

Thornberry crossed the finish line hand-in-hand with teammate and running mate first-year Jenni Huelsman. The pair finished 51st and 52nd respectively; both had times of 20:56.

At the 4-km marker as Thornberry caught up with Huelsman, she said 'hand in hand, promise?,' according to Huelsman, who agreed to it.

The duo ran the last 1000-meters side by side and at the finish held hands.

"The race wasn't so serious," Huelsman said. "All muddy and snowy, kinda like an obstacle course."

"We were more nervous about spraining our ankles[than doing well]," Huelsman added.

Following Huelsman and Thornberry, the rest of the team followed within 27 seconds of each other. First-year Beth Spalding crossed the line in 84th place with a time of 21:29. Junior China Weber finished 100th in 21:42.

Three seconds later co-captain Rachel Sims reached the finish in 103rd place, and six seconds after that sophomore Lisa Mickley finished 107th overall.

Sophomore Rebecca Grossman crossed the line in 21:56 for 114th place. Grossman spent the season recovering from a broken toe which prevented her from running up to her potential. Last year at Regionals, Grossman placed 19th.

Thirumurthy also spent the season recovering from an injury a stress fracture.

"I definitely wasn't pleased with the way things worked out this year," Thirumurthy said. He ran his best race of the season at Regionals, finishing second out of all the NCAC runners at the meet, ahead of rival Dan Denning of Kenyon, who edged Thirumurthy for the Conference Championship in '95 and '96.

"It's nice to get a second chance- to finish like I wanted to at the conference meet," Thirumurthy said.

"Harsha tore it up," Rogers said. "It was a great day for him."

Last year at the meet Thirumurthy finished 24th.

At the beginning of the race, Rogers and Thirumurthy were right next to each other. It began to snow; according to Rogers the snow wouldn't melt, it would just stick.

Coach Tom Mulligan parted them with the words, "Go hard."

At the sound of the starting gun, Rogers accidentally gave Thirumurthy an elbow to the sternum. The blow propelled Thirumurthy and he quickly raced to the head of the pack.

Nearing the end of the race, Rogers was getting lazy with his arms when co-captain junior Rachel Sims yelled, "Lower your arms and get your arms back in action."

"She was right," Rogers said. "Everything clicked and I was back in stride. Working my way towards the top."

Rogers finished the race in 60th place with a time of 28:39 out of 185 runners, tenth out of the 33 NCAC runners present at the meet.

"All the elements fell into place," Rogers said. "It was a good way to end the year. I was proud to be able to do it with Harsha."

After the race, Rogers and Thirumurthy cooled down on the course. "I hucked my spikes into the woods," Thirumurthy said. "I've been wanting to do that for the past three weeks." Thirumurthy had been racing in the shoes for the past six years.