Princeton University Athletics
Fast Starts
January 28, 2000 | Women's Cross Country
Jan. 28, 2000
The Princeton women's cross country season had gotten off to fast starts the past several years.
This season was no different.
The 1999 edition of the Tiger harriers won its first two meets of the season. Princeton defeated 10 other teams at the Lafayette Invitational in Easton, Pa., and then defeated La Salle, Rutgers, The College of New Jersey and Manhattan at the Princeton Invitational at Princeton Battlefield. The Tigers were off and running once again.
Courtney Ebersole began what would be a very successful season with third- place finishes in both meets. She would go on to be the top Princeton finisher in all but one meet throughout the season.
Princeton hit a minor bump in the road at the Iona Meet of Champions, a long- standing meet at Van Cortlandt Park, the site of the ECAC and Heptagonal championships. Ebersole finished 25th to lead the team to a seventh place finish, but the Tigers would use the experience as a stepping stone for later meets on the venerable course. One of the most exciting meets every year is the H-Y-P contest between Princeton, Harvard and Yale. This 23rd edition was no different. Yale, however, was the team to take home the championship. Princeton would finish second, and Ebersole would finish fifth overall. After a year off from competition, Carrie Miller finished ninth, while Kristi Rosso joined them in the top 10.
A fifth-place finish at the ECAC championships followed the H-Y-P meet with Ebersole leading the way for the sixth time in as many meets. Rosso was 21st, and freshman Sarah Rivlin showed her potential with a 28th-place finish out of 84 runners.
For the second time in two weeks and the third in four weeks, Princeton drew on its Van Cortlandt Park experiences. The Tigers could not grab the Heptagonal championship that has eluded it throughout its history. Brown ran away with the title, Princeton finished sixth. Princeton put two runners in the top 25. Ebersole clocked in at 18th place and Emily Enyon finished in 22nd place.
At the NCAA Mid-Atlantic championships, Princeton stepped up its game a bit, but it would not be able to earn the automatic bid to the NCAA championship meet. The Tigers finished fourth out of 22 competing teams. Miller made her comeback complete with a 14th-place finish. The top two teams advanced to the NCAA championships with an automatic bid, but the Tigers were more than 85 points from that highly-sought after second position.
In all, it was a good season, that had its ups and downs, but the Tigers certainly have a solid foundation to build on for future successes.