Though rankings suggested it, Saturday’s race proved Penn State U.’s cross country teams will be underdogs again this season.
The No. 24 Penn State women’s team turned in a third-place finish, while the men placed fourth at the Harry Groves Spiked Shoe Invitational at the Penn State Golf Courses Saturday morning.
After finishing 11th nationally last season and winning the Big Ten championship, the team finished behind only No. 11 Georgetown and No. 7 Princeton, and both runners and coaches expected a finish on par with what the teams ended up with over the weekend.
“We’re pleased with the third-place finish. I think we competed very well against [Princeton and Georgetown],” coach Beth Alford-Sullivan said. “When the rubber hit the road a little bit on this course — the last half is very difficult — I didn’t think our women ran as tough as they can. But it’s September, and you don’t want them to run as tough as they can until October and November.”
In similar fashion to last week’s Dolan Duals, both the men’s and women’s teams ran in a pack for the first part of the race.
Junior Kara Millhouse came out on top for Penn State, placing seventh overall with a time of 21 minutes, 16.6 seconds on the 6,000-meter course, averaging a 5:45 mile.
“I think it was one of my better races I’ve had here. I think it has to do with me maturing as a runner,” Milhouse said. “But we have so much talent in the front pack of our team. Any day, we could run this race and someone else will finish in front.”
Alford-Sullivan said she was happy with the men as well as the women, saying the men have shown much more focus and determination already this season. Led by juniors Kyle Dawson and Vince McNally in the 8,000-meter race, Penn State earned two of the top seven spots.
Though Sullivan said she was happy with the men’s results, McNally said he wanted to beat unranked Navy, which finished in third place, just ahead of the Lions.
“It would have been nice to be third. It was pretty close,” McNally said. “It kind of sucks that we’re trying to set our sights on the Georgetowns and Princetons, to have Navy slip in there was a little disappointing.”
McNally said the team will continue trying to run as a pack for the bulk of races, but identified a weak spot in the team’s game Saturday on which to improve.
“It’s kind of tricky, because we wanted to run more as a team [Saturday], but we went out a little hot,” McNally said. “Getting up there with Kyle, [Chris] Cipro and I in what I call the peloton, we could have been back leading our whole group of guys instead of being in our own little pack out front.”
With the next meet coming on Sept. 25 in Minnesota, both teams’ runners are anticipating competition of even higher quality.
And while neither team finished above their expected performance, McNally said September is all about building up the team and solidifying the team’s strategy.
“It’s September, so I think this was a good baseline, especially off of what we were last year,” McNally said. “We’re content [with this race] as a team. So we’re just going to build off this race and keep getting better.”