This past Friday, Longwood held its first Cross Country meet in seven years at the Longwood/Adidas Cross Country Invitational at the Longwood University Golf Course. The meet was a 5k (3.1 miles), rather than the usual 8k (5 miles).
“It was really cool. It was really nice to have all the other athletes come out and really see you.
It was a new experience,” said senior Nick Reed. “It was just real nice to relax before the meet and stay here, and not travel three or four hours to another place and have no idea what it’s like out there [on the course].”
Virginia Commonwealth University’s (VCU) Mohamad Adam finished first in Friday’s meet with a time of 16:04 followed by Richmond’s Mathew McKenna (16:04) and Andrew Valenski (16:07).
Overall, Richmond took first place with 23 points ahead of VCU’s 46 points. Longwood’s men placed third overall, passing Hampden-Sydney by 47 points.
Sophomore Robert Willis led the Lancers in ninth place with a time of 16:26, followed by seniors Russell Reed, who finished 11th with a time of 16:40 and Nick Reed, who placed 13th with a time of 16:45.
For the women, VCU’s Emily Dyke (19:16) took first followed by her teammate Nichelle Scott (19:17) and James Madison’s Nicole Goff (19:22). Overall, the Richmond ladies took first with 30 points, followed by VCU’s 39 and James Madison’s 66.
The women Lancer’s team finished fourth with 105 points; senior Elizabeth Drake ran a time of 20:50 followed by sophomore Gracie Piekarski’s time of 21:31. On longwoodlancers.com cross country page, Drake explained Friday’s crowd of spirit filled Longwood students and faculty: “Coming around into the last corner where you could see all the Lancers, it was absolutely amazing,” said Drake.
“To see them and hear them cheer, to say Longwood and my name, it made me find the extra push I needed to finish and just bring it in.”
Nick believes the team’s successes came from how well they were able to pack together and finish around each other’s times. He also believes packing is a part of the team’s game that needs work when it comes to the longer courses they run on.
"The strength that comes from running a course as hilly as this is huge, and we will use this for a workout in gunning toward the conference championship," Longwood’s cross-country Head Coach Catherine Hanson said to longwoodlancers.com.
"The gains that they make – all of the student-athletes here today, not just mine – are huge. There are some courses that have these really long, lower inclined hills and then here you've got these 60 to 100-meter climbs where they really have to use muscles they're not used to."
On Saturday, Oct. 4 at 10 a.m., both teams will be running in the Lehigh Invitational at Leigh University in Bethlehem, PA.
