Despite competition from 44 teams in the gold division at last Friday's Paul Short Invitational, hosted by Lehigh University, the cross country teams were undeterred. The men finished seventh with 255 points, narrowly edging out Dartmouth. Earning 393 points, the women ran to a 12th place finish, besting the University of New Hampshire by 32 points.
Dan Lowry '12, who completed the 8-kilometer course in 24 minutes, 18 seconds, led the men. Finishing closely behind the sixth-place Lowry was teammate Matt Duffy '12, who crossed the finish line at 24:41 and earned 16th place.
"Individually, I thought it was a pretty good performance," Duffy said.
As a team, the men finished behind Columbia, but ahead of Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton and Yale.
"We beat most of the teams we were supposed to beat, and we had another consistent performance," Duffy said. "We're two-for-two in terms of consistency and good performances overall."
"There was some small kind of tactical things we could have done better," said Tim Springfield, head coach of the men's cross country team. "But that's always going to be the case in a meet with 400 runners."
Margaret Connelly '14 was yet again the top finisher for the Brown women, covering the 6-kilometer course in 21:15 and finishing in 33rd place. Heidi Caldwell '14 finished just four seconds after Connelly and earned 39th place. Ari Garber '12 finished third for the Bears in 21:47, followed by Olivia Mickle '13 with a time of 22:01.
"I thought that the team did a pretty good job of being patient," said Mitchell Baker, head coach of the women's team. "I think it's pretty easy to feel the pressure to get out fast, so you don't get buried in a large field like that."
In addition to the large field, the women faced a muddy course and had a runner taken out of the race due to concerns of heat exhaustion.
"I was pleased with our top four in the sense they ran competitively," Baker said. "We're all excited to figure out how to run them together the whole time."
Both teams will next compete at the New England Championships in Boston Oct. 8.
