Princeton University Athletics
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Princeton Goes For Second Straight Sweep At Ivy League Heptagonal Cross Country Championships
October 24, 2007 | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country
The No. 4-ranked Princeton women's cross country team and a Tiger men's cross country team headed back toward full strength travel to Van Cortlandt Park Friday morning looking for a second straight Ivy League Heptagonal championship sweep.
The women's five-kilometer race begins at 10:45 a.m. at the famed course in the Bronx, with the men's five-mile race following at 11:45 and the awards ceremony concluding the day at 12:45. In both races, the Tigers are among the favorites to be standing at the center of the awards platform holding the championship trophy.
The No. 4 ranking is the highest ever for the Princeton women and is the latest highlight in a season that has already been filled with highlights. The most recent racing highlight came two Saturdays ago, when Peter Farrell's team went to Indiana and won the "white" race at the Brooks Pre-Nationals, beating several other top 10 teams along the way.
The Tigers have won each of the four meets they've entered in 2007, also taking Lehigh's Paul Short Run for the second straight season Sept. 28 in addition to the Pre-Nationals win.
Sophomore standouts Liz Costello and Christy Johnson have led the Princeton charge all season, and each finished in the top seven last year at Heps as freshmen. 2007 freshmen Ashley Higginson and Sarah Cummings are a formidable duo themselves that have helped take the Tigers to new levels this season, while juniors Jolee VanLeuven and Megan Brandeland and senior Caitlin McTague are all capable of scoring in any race.
Princeton's winning score in 2006 was 42, well ahead of second-place Columbia's 64. The Tigers' win was their first since 1980 after eight second-place finishes since that year.
The Tiger men won a close race with Columbia in 2006 to earn their first Heps cross country title since the 1999-2000 season. Princeton placed five runners in the top 18 to finish with a score of 50, with the Lions taking second place with a score of 63.
The 2007 season for the Tigers has been a strong one despite the absence of three-time 2006-07 All-America distance runner and senior captain David Nightingale for much of the year. A leg injury kept Nightingale from competing until the Pre-Nationals meet two weeks ago, where he finished 115th overall as the Tigers' fifth and final scorer.
Both senior Frank Tinney and sophomore Ben Sitler have stepped up in Nightingale's absence, and each is capable of a big race at Heps on Friday. Tinney was the Tigers' top finisher at Pre-Nationals, running the eight kilometers in 23:48 for an outstanding 26th-place finish, while Sitler was the third-place finisher at the Paul Short run and was also Princeton's top runner at Fordham earlier in the season.
Junior Michael Maag, seventh at the Heptagonal meet last season, is always a candidate for a top finish in any event, while Tim O'Neill was in the top 25 at Heps last season and Ted Price was a top 100 finisher for Princeton at the Pre-Nationals race.
Princeton's sweep of the men's and women's races a year ago was the third in race history (1978 and 1980) were the other times. Dartmouth is the only school to earn back-to-back sweeps at Heps cross country, winning both races in 1994 and 1995.