When the men’s and women’s cross country teams reach New York City tonight, it will be interesting to see how the city is handling itself.

Out For a Sunday Stroll: Two Yeomen cross country runners work on their distance training during practice at North Fields. (photo by Jonathon Solars)

Both teams will be running in the New York University Invitational in Upper Manhattan. The race, which takes place in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, will see up to 300 people in both the men’s and women’s races coming from nearly 50 different schools.

After the bombings at the World Trade Center last Tuesday, this race became a huge question mark. Host college NYU was shut down until Sept. 14, when classes formally resumed, but as with most of the colleges across the nation, sporting events were cancelled. Manhattan, where NYU is located, is still recovering from the events, and much of the lower part of the island is still closed, with all tenants having been evacuated.

“It will definitely be somber to some extent, but the fact they are holding the event at all shows that we are all moving on, but with a great deal of respect,” sophomore Sarah Bennett said.

Division III schools from all over will gather to run in the huge invitational. “I think both teams have the potential to finish high,” Bennett said.
The men will look to fifth-year senior John Rogers and sophomores Alex Scally and Adam Greeney to lead the team in the five mile run, while the women will look to juniors Lori Tuchfeld, Laura Feeney and Kyle McKenzie and sophomore Julia Goeke to set the pace in the 3.1 mile event.
The all-day event will kick off at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Thus far this season, the Yeomen and Yeowomen have ventured to the Ohio University Relays and the Allegheny Invitational.

At the Relays in Athens, Ohio, both the men and women’s teams racked up impressive runs, with the team of junior co-captains Lori Tuchfeld and Laura Feeney leading the women and the tandem of senior John Rogers and first-year Ryan McGinnis pacing the way for the men’s squad.

The teams’ second meet of the year at the Allegheny Invite, in Meadesville, Pa., proved to be a good indication of the potential both teams possess. The men finished fifth out of 11 teams, while the women tallied a low score to place third of seven teams. Rogers led the way for the men, finishing with a time of 28:07, and Feeney led the women’s team with a time of 19:55.

Both teams looked at the invitational in Meadesville as a form of tune-up for the rest of the season, as after the NYU Invitational they will travel to the All-Ohio Championships at Ohio Wesleyan on Oct. 5 and the Ohio Northern Invitational on Oct. 13 and the North Coast Athletic Conference Championships (which Oberlin hosted for the first time in school history last season) at NCAA Great Lakes Regional at Kalamazoo, Mich. on Nov. 10.