The Pomona-Pitzer men’s and women’s cross-country teams swept the field at the P-P Invitational at Strehle track this weekend. Both teams secured first place overall, while the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men’s and women’s teams both placed fourth in the event.
The P-P men’s win was especially impressive, considering the fact that several of the team’s top runners were resting for the Pre-Nationals meet, and did not participate this weekend. The Sagehen runners who did compete all had solid performances, with five runners placing in the top-15.
Danny Rosen PO ’20 led the P-P squad with a fifth-place individual finish. He broke his personal record by eight seconds, clocking in at 26:03.0 on the eight-kilometer course.
“As a team, this meet, we showed off our depth, as we ran well against SCIAC opponents without our top 13 runners racing,” Rosen said.
The Sagehen women’s cross-country also took first place in the invitational, finishing the meet with three top-10 finishes. Helen Guo PO ’20 had an outstanding meet, placing first overall individually with a time of 21:46.1 on the six-kilometer course.
“This meet was great because I had the opportunity to work on kicking at the end of a race,” Guo said. “I think this will be a great skill for me to develop more this season and in my future years on P-P.”
Head coach Kirk Reynolds praised his team’s performance at the invite, which followed a strenuous meet at Stanford the weekend prior.
“The top seven were taking the first two miles of the race very easy, but they started racing at the two-mile mark and really impressed me with the way they moved up through traffic,” Reynolds said.
In addition to their win, the P-P women’s team was overjoyed to see the return of two athletes, Lauren Hamilton PO ’20 and Maddie Bennet PZ ’19, who had both suffered long-standing injuries.
While they did not place as high as the Sagehens, the CMS men’s and women’s teams also had success in this weekend’s meet, despite also resting many of their top runners. Six of their athletes broke their all-time personal records.
On the women’s side, Emilie Clark CM ’22 and Jackie McVay CM ’21 placed in the top-20. As for the men, Evan Hassman CM ’21 took fifteenth place individually, clocking in at 26:40.5.
John Goldhammer, the CMS men’s and women’s head coach, was happy with his team’s performance in the event. He noted that he is looking forward to the SCIAC championships.
“The CMS team has continually produced strong results when it counts at the end of each year,” Goldhammer said. “That will continue this year, and we’ll be ready when it counts.”
Next, CMS will be competing in the CSU San Marcos Cougar Challenge Saturday, Oct. 13.
As for the Sagehens, several members of both the men’s and women’s teams will compete in Pre-Nationals next weekend, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.