The nice thing about cross country, indoor track and track & field is that the teams get to build momentum off of each other throughout the year. This season, the 2007-08 indoor track team is riding high from Amherst cross country’s smashing success at the NCAA Championships last week in St. Olaf, Minn., where the women grabbed first place, the men ranked 12th in the nation and senior captain Heather Wilson and junior Elise Tropiano turned in spectacular performances that nabbed them All-American titles. To top that off, Head Coach Erik Nedeau is officially the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association’s 2007 Cross Country Coach of the Year.
On the downside, both the men’s and women’s teams have lost talented seniors. The graduation of tri-captain Shauneen Garrahan ’07, who picked up three national championship titles at last year’s NCAAs, is a particularly hard blow for the women. On the men’s side, Nate Freese ’07, who had struggled with anemia problems throughout his Amherst career, had a breakthrough senior spring, and surprised everyone this past fall with a 2:36 finish at the New York Marathon. He ranked 16th out of all the Americans who competed, beating out former teammate Richard Wilson ’07 who was the 37th American with a time of 2:39, and Lance Armstrong—yes, the Lance Armstrong—who was the 92nd American.
But there is a pool of fresh talent coming in to replace last year’s seniors, and runners on both teams have high expectations of this season’s indoor track runners. Of the women, junior co-captain Kate Silverman said, “I think [the team] is in the best overall shape coming into the season that I’ve seen so far. The [first-years] put in a lot of effort since last season and it should pay off — Susan Wasserman ’11 has been training at a high level, Zoe Pagonis ’11 has been working hard to train with the longer-sprinting crew and should have some great races in the sprints and hurdles, and Emily Dick ’11 should have a big impact this year.” The first-years also contribute to the team’s depth, one of its traditional strengths.
As for the men’s team, tri-captain Steve Shashy ’08 said, the goal is straightforward: “To qualify as many people as far as possible.” Mid-distance events will likely be point-scorers for the team, with senior tri-captain Basile Beaty and junior Jack Kiley the runners to watch, and—of course—great things will be expected of the long distance runners in light of cross country’s performance at the NCAAs. While the sprint crew needs to improve as the season progresses, the men’s team, like the women’s, is in great physical shape and is poised to take this season by storm. “Everyone has been consistently working hard and pushing one another in the workouts,” Shashy said. “It obviously remains to be seen how that will play out on meet day, but expect improvement over previous seasons.”
2007-08 is, no doubt, shaping up to be a fun season to watch for both the men and the women. “The dynamics between the two teams, as well as between the long and short distance runners, are wonderful and make for a fun and encouraging environment to practice and perform in,” Silverman concluded. “We learned a lot from our seniors last year and are looking forward to continuing past successes and building the depth of our team.” The runners will get the chance to do just that this Saturday at the Husky Carnival Invitational Meet hosted by Northeastern University.