Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Women's Cross Country Runs For Glory Monday At NCAA Championships
November 18, 2007 | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country
In the last five years, the Princeton women's cross country team has become a regular at the season-ending NCAA championship meet. But never before has Peter Farrell's team entered the meet with as much promise for a top finish as it does in 2007.
The Tigers are the No. 4-ranked team in the country, and they haven't lost a meet all season. And all those accolades will be put to the test on Monday when Princeton goes for glory at the 2007 NCAA championships at Indiana State's Lavern Gibson Championship Course.
The women's 6K championship race begins at 12:55 p.m. ET Monday, following a 12:05 p.m. men's 10K race that will have three Tigers competing in David Nightingale, Ben Sitler and Michael Maag.
The Tiger women, led by sophomore superstars Liz Costello and Christy Johnson, are certainly one of the race favorites by any measure. Princeton is ranked nationally behind only Stanford, Florida State and Oregon.
At the same Lavern Gibson course, just more than five weeks ago, the Tigers won the "White" race at the Pre-Nationals meet, defeating three more Top 10 teams in the process. Princeton's average time of its runners in that meet was third-best of all teams competing in the two races, behind only Stanford and Florida State, who competed in the "Blue" race.
Costello, the Ivy League Heptagonal champion and second-place finisher in the NCAA regional meet, and Johnson, the No. 2 finisher in the conference meet and the No. 5 finisher at the regional, are joined by a pair of outstanding upperclassmen in junior All-Ivy runners Jolee VanLeuven and Megan Brandeland and a pair of standout freshmen in Ashley Higginson and Sarah Cummings.
The Princeton women have won each meet in which they have competed their top seven runners this season. The Tigers opened the year with a win at the Fordham Invitational, then defeated Harvard and Yale in a tri-meet the next week. Two weeks later, Princeton won the Paul Short Run at Lehigh for the second straight season.
After the win in the "White" race at Pre-Nationals Oct. 13, Princeton came back two weeks later to dominate at Ivy League Heptagonals, winning with one of the lowest scores in race history. The Tigers then used their depth to earn a win at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional a week ago, winning that event for the third year in a row.
Though the Tiger men will not have a chance at the team title, Nightingale, Sitler and Maag make Princeton one of only two teams nationally that did not advance as a team to have three individual runners competing in the event. Nightingale, the senior captain, is competing in the national championship for the third straight year and was an All-America a year ago with a 39th place finish.