A year after finishing 13th at the Division III National Championships, the girls' cross country team hoped to improve on their ranking for this year. Laura Paulsen, Mira Patel and Cecilia Furlong are a main reason for their team's recent success this year, and for this reason they were named News-Letter Athletes of the Week.
The trio of runners has led the Blue Jays cross country team to their current number-one ranking. The girls improved their ranking from fourth to first place after beating the number one and number seven ranked teams over the weekend. They join the men's lacrosse, baseball and water polo teams as the only teams to be ranked first nationally in Hopkins history.
Head Coach Bobby Van Allen believes the three girls set the mindset of the team. "I think far more than the individual accomplishments they have set forth for themselves was to help this team contend for a national championship. To help get the most out of each of their teammates and to be the glue for a national caliber team," he said.
The team is led by senior captain Laura Paulsen. Paulsen is the most decorated Hopkins women's cross country runner of all time, as she took home her second Centennial Conference Runner of the Week award for this season. Paulsen is majoring in biomedical Eengineering, concentrating in cell and tissue engineering. She hopes to go to medical school and to one day become an orthopedic surgeon. Paulsen is very happy with her team's success so far. "The team has done an amazing job this season and have gone beyond my expectations," she said. "I can't believe we beat Middlebury, the number-one ranked team, this past weekend and were ranked fourth in the nation last week, and may possibly be ranked first in the nation tomorrow. It's amazing!"
Senior Mira Patel has been the second runner for the team this year in each race. Patel is a ChemBE major and couldn't have been happier with her team's race on Saturday.
"It was a truly amazing feeling to know that we had just taken down the number one team in the nation," she said. "I couldn't have been more proud of all the girls."
"Mira is such a dedicated runner, who gives the team absolutely everything she has on race days," sophomore Cecilia Furlong said.
"She helps keep me focused and encourages me to stick with her during races and really helps me to keep pushing the pace no matter how badly I might feel."
Furlong has been a dedicated runner in her own right as she has been the team's number three runner throughout the season and helped her team clinch the crucial win last Saturday. Furlong is a BME major and plans on being a pediatric surgeon in the future.
Coach Van Allen has been very happy with Furlong's progress as a sophomore.
"For Cecilia, being a sophomore, we just want to see her continue to progress," he said. "She is certainly off to a great start here at Hopkins and is already emerging as one of the top runners in the conference and region. We just want to keep her healthy and she'll be contending to be an All-American individually herself too."
All three girls have the same main goal in mind: finishing higher than last year's 13th place at Nationals.
"Our ultimate goal is to be first at nationals, and so far I think we've been doing a great job of stepping it up against tough competition and proving that we are one of the best teams in the nation," Furlong said.
Coach Van Allen believes all three runners will be the key to accomplishing this goal.
"I think the three of them as well as the entire team mesh very well and feed off one another," Van Allen said. "They all have enough competitive juices to push each other on a daily routine in practice, but they are so team-oriented that they are looking to get the best out of one another."
