The men’s and women’s cross country teams competed in Washington, D.C., this past weekend at the Great Meadow Invitational hosted by Georgetown University.
The women’s team placed third, while the men’s team fell 39-22 to No. 9 Georgetown.
The women ran both an A and a B team, with the A team finishing behind Georgetown and Penn State; the B team finished sixth.
Yale’s A team finished with a total time of 1:31:07.38, missing first place by a little over a minute. Senior sisters, Laura and Kate O’Neill led the Bulldogs, placing first and second, respectively. Kate ran the 5,000 meters in a time of 17:29, followed by Laura at 17:31.
“I feel good about the effort,” Laura O’Neill said. “I felt strong when I was running.”
Alexandra Sawicki ’04 and Julia Pudlin ’06 posted top-15 times, and several other young runners made valuable contributions on the hilly course.
“We ran against two really strong teams,” Laura said. “But we turned in some good times, and the freshmen performed well.”
In the men’s dual meet against Georgetown — run on a difficult, overgrown route –Yale placed three in the top ten, including Lucas Meyer ’05, the individual winner with a time of 25:31.
“We can tell from [Meyer’s] workouts that he’s in phenomenal shape,” team captain John Reindl ’03 said. “[His victory] did not come as a complete surprise.”
Sophomores Casey Moriarty and Josh Yelsey also ran well, placing fifth and eighth, respectively.
“It was a good first meet — a building-block race,” Moriarty said. “The goals going in were to gain experience, and of course to win, but that’s always the goal.”
Reindl added that both James Pearce ’03 and Robert Lobue ’04 ran well in one of their first varsity cross country races. Andrew Johnson ’06 and Scott Peachman ’06 also had good first-time freshman races.
“[The race] showed me that, overall, I’m on the fastest and deepest team since I’ve been here,” Reindl said.