W.X-Country places 22th in tough 12-team field at ECACs

No one said the ECAC Championships at Van Cortlandt Park would be easy, but the Penn women's cross country team may not have known just how hard the race would be. The team headed to the Bronx this past weekend and walked away with an 11th place finish out of 12 teams. The Quakers were paced by senior Stephanie Bell's 36th-place finish. Bell ran the 5-kilometer race in just over 19 minutes and 14 seconds. Junior captain Meredith Rossner was Penn's second finisher, crossing the line in 45th place, 12 seconds after Bell. "Stephanie ran really well and Meredith has been very consistent for us," Penn assistant coach Cricket Batz-Shaklee said. The ECAC Championships are always competitive, and this year's race was no exception. Duke -- ranked No. 30 in the nation in the FinishLynx Poll -- prevailed in the race, just edging out Cornell and Virginia. Duke freshman Sheela Agrawal won the meet in 17 minutes and 42 seconds. "It was pretty brutal competition for us," Batz-Shaklee said. Van Cortlandt Park is one of the toughest courses in the East, with varied gradients and a narrow, uphill section notorious for making passing all but impossible. "The course was a surprise to the underclassmen," Rossner said. "We told them it was hard, but they didn't really know just how difficult it would be." More important to the Quakers than placing high in the meet was gaining valuable experience for the critical Heptagonal Championships, which will also be held at Van Cortlandt later this month. "This was a preview to the Heptagonals," Batz-Shaklee said. "I could have put us in a much easier race, but I thought that it was important that we get the experience against some tough competition." Not only will the Heptagonals be held at the same course, but with some of the same teams running, it should be a similar race. All eight Ivy League schools, plus Navy, compete in the Heps, which will be held on October 29. Penn's experience at Van Cortlandt could be a big plus come Heps. The young Quakers squad -- three of the team's eight competitors at Heps will be freshmen -- definitely benefitted from last week's race. "The experience should help us a lot in the Heptagonals," Rossner said. "Now we have something that we can actually visualize." If Penn is to improve on its 11th-place finish, the Quakers definitely need to reduce their team score. At the ECAC Championships, Bell and Rossner were the only Quakers to run the 5k course in under 20 minutes. "We definitely need to improve our team spread," Batz-Shaklee said. "I will be very pleased if we have our top five runners at less than 20 minutes." In order to meet that goal, the Quakers have started their final phase of training. This means cutting back on the mileage and working principally on speed. The idea is that by cutting down on distance running, Penn should be fresh and ready to go come the Heptagonals.