Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
Ivy League Heptagonal Championships
Players Mentioned
In Dominating Fashion, With Individual Winners On Each Side, Tiger Cross Country Sweeps Heps For Second Straight Season
October 26, 2007 | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country
Princeton women's cross country and track & field head coach Peter Farrell said it after both races were done Friday at Van Cortlandt Park. He said that the Princeton cross country teams were starting to make Ivy League Heptagonal history. The numbers certainly back up his claim.
Led by individual winner Liz Costello on the women's side, the Princeton women won with the fourth-lowest score in meet history. Led by individual winner Michael Maag on the men's side, the Tiger men broke open a close race with Cornell to earn a win of their own. And with those two wins, individually and collectively, came some of that history.
The Tigers are now just the second school in meet history, joining the Dartmouth teams of 1994 and 1995, to earn Heptagonal sweeps of both the men's and women's races in consecutive seasons. Costello, a sophomore, and Maag, a junior, became the first Princeton pair to earn individual titles in the same Heps meet and just the third pair of teammates by any school to accomplish the feat.
All five of Princeton scorers on the women's side finished in the race's top nine, while four Tigers on the men's side finished in the top 11, as Princeton outscored Columbia by 44 places in the women's race and Cornell by 29 places in the men's race.
"Michael is a consummate team player and one of our hardest workers, so no one deserves this more than he does," said Princeton men's distance coach Steve Dolan. "And I can't say enough about our seniors. They had a great day today and have been great for us all year."
"This is the beginning of our championship season," said Farrell, whose team is ranked No. 4 in the country and has now won each of its four invitational races this season. "They asked me before this meet what's been the highlight of the year, but really the whole year has been a highlight. Now we try to keep that going in regionals and NCAA's."
The women's race began the day, and the prohibitive favorites from Princeton certainly didn't disappoint. The Tigers' top seven jumped right to the front of the pack in the first mile and stayed there, all finishing in the top 16 of the race, while Costello eventually pulled away from teammate and classmate Christy Johnson to win by more than nine seconds in a time of 17:14.4. The time was the third best for a Tiger runner for the 5K distance at Heps and the ninth-best time overall for the race.
Costello became just the fourth individual winner for Princeton, joining Laura Cattivera in 1987, Lynn Jennings in 1979 and Emily Kroshus in 2003. Johnson was second in 17:23.7, giving the Tigers the top two finishers in the individual race for the second time in five years. Kroshus and Cack Ferrell finished 1-2 in 2003.
On the men's side, Maag broke away from a tight pack coming out of the woods to win in 24:37.9, almost four seconds better than second-place Sage Canaday of Cornell. Showing his team's depth, the junior became the third different Tiger runner to be his team's top finisher this year, joining Ben Sitler, who was third Friday, and Frank Tinney, who was 11th.
Maag became Princeton's first individual winner at the event since Paul Morrison took top honors in 1999.
Not to be outdone, senior captain and All-America David Nightingale returned from injury to deliver another first-team All-Ivy performance for the Tigers, finishing sixth overall just 11 seconds behind Maag's winning time.
James O'Toole was the Tigers' fifth scorer on the men's side, finishing 17th.
On the women's side, the outstanding junior season of Megan Brandeland hit another peak Friday when she finished with a first-team All-Ivy performance of her own, a fifth-place time of 17:45.9. Classmate Jolee VanLeuven was eighth in 17:51.2, while freshman standout Ashley Higginson passed a Penn runner near the line to give the Tigers five of the top nine finishers.
"Heps never goes exactly like you planned, but I thought the team did a nice job especially with midterms this week," Farrell said. "West Virginia and Georgetown will be some great competition at regionals, and we hope to run a great race in two weeks."
"We really worked hard this fall to get to this day, and to see it end like this is a testament to the hard work of the team and the leadership of the senior class," Dolan said.
The Tigers will run at NCAA regionals in two weeks at Lehigh's Goodman Campus. The women will be going for their third straight regional title. Both teams participated in the Paul Short Run on the Lehigh course earlier this season, with the men's finishing third and the women taking top honors.