Cross Country First-years Making an Early Impact

MASON OSGOOD ’17
MANAGING EDITOR
The Trinity Men’s and Women’s Cross Country team have begun an already impressive season with their first two meets. Both teams welcomed new freshman runners at the Trinity Bantam XC invitational at Wickham Park on Sept. 10. Rather than the traditional 8k for men and 6k for women, the Bantam Invitational was 5k for both men and women.
The men placed second out of eight teams at the Bantam Invitational. Freshman Weyessa McAlister placed first, and sophomore Zach Joachim placed fifth. The invitational also included an alumni race, most alumnus coming from past Trinity cross country teams. Most notably was 2015 Trinity graduate Patrick Hoagland who placed 12th in the men’s race.
The women’s team placed first out of eight teams. Leading the Bantams was sophomore Anna Barnes who placed third. The rest of the women’s team placed sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth with sophomore Lauren Barrett, senior Sophie Long, freshman Grace Harrison, and freshman Samantha Feenstra respectively.
Their most recent race, the UMass-Dartmouth invitational also showcased the new freshman’s skills. On the men’s side, Trinity placed ninth out of thirty three teams. Freshman Weyessa (Ace) McAlister placed first on the team and fourth overall out 242 runners. McAlister finished 13 seconds off of the first place time, and a second behind third place Connecticut College runner Danny Aschale. Trinity runners Joachim, freshman Tim Bogomolov, and freshman Spencer Brown all finished in the top one hundred runners. Junior Co-Captain Kyle Larson said of the freshman talent this year, “The freshman class is a group of driven athletes who are bringing promising talent to our young team. They seem determined and aware of the fact that embracing the daily grind of training is essential to long term success. I see all of them making huge improvements this year, as they are all athletes with the capacity to improve.”
The women’s team also performed well at the UMass-Dartmouth Invitational with a third place finish out of 33 teams. Barrett finished fourteenth, just 10 seconds off of a top-10 performance. Right behind her was Barnes placing 20th place. Senior captain Sophie Long said of the freshman talent that, “Our freshman class has been absolutely essential for our team. They are making major strides in assisting our team to move up in the ranks. They also bring an amazing attitude to practices and races, which makes for a really great environment to be in.”
The team travels to Lehigh University next Saturday for the Paul Short Invitational, the largest race the new freshman have seen yet.