Junior Claire Richardson will look to qualify for her second-straight NCAA Championship meet this weekend, as Harvard runs in its regional qualifier. On the men’s side, junior Dan Chenoweth will lead the pack.
A bus will bring fans to the NCAA Regional Cross Country Meet at Franklin Park on Saturday. But if you’re anything like Dan Chenoweth, you’ll get there faster by running.
The junior became the first Crimson runner since 1995 to win the Ivy League Heptagonal Cross Country Championships two weeks ago at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. This weekend, Chenoweth is looking to qualify for the NCAA Championships for the second year in a row.
“You do everything you can to qualify,” Chenoweth said. “Make sure you take care of business. The goal isn’t necessarily to win.”
Last year, he took 42nd at NCAAs, but he took eighth at the Pre-National Invitational this fall.
“It’s not going to be a cakewalk,” Harvard coach Jason Saretsky said. “He’s ready for a good hard effort to get to the next level.”
Also looking to make a return to Nationals is junior Claire Richardson, who placed 144th at the meet a year ago. Last weekend, the junior took sixth at Heps, following an all-Princeton top five.
“[Claire’s] got the talent that it takes [and the] hard work that it takes,” Chenoweth said. “She’s shown that she can step up. [This weekend] it’s going to take strong performances from all the girls, and I think we’ll see that happen.”
While Richardson is something of a staple at the top spot, the rest of the Crimson scorers have traded places throughout the season, and there has been competition for a spot in the top seven.
“It’s a competitive year just to make that top seven,” Saretsky said. “They’ve all done a great job and have earned that spot.”
This level of depth throughout the team helped the women achieve a second-place finish at Heps, their strongest finish since 1995.
“The make of a great team is interchangeable parts,” Saretsky said. “[We have] seven young ladies who are ready to go out there and on any given day can go out and help this program.”
Some of these runners have made waves individually, such as freshman Sammy Silva, who won the Iona Meet of Champions in September.
But for the most part, it’s the pack mentality that has helped the women’s team succeed.
“My best friends are the people I run with,” junior captain Jamie Olson said. “We run really well together and we run well because we run together.”
The men have not had the same team success, and finished sixth at Heptagonals.
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