The Hopkins men’s and women’s Cross Country teams returned after a long summer to the Sea Gull Opener on Aug. 31. Both teams did exceptionally well, with the Women’s team claiming the title and the Men’s team placing second.
The defending national champion Women’s Cross Country team has a lot to live up to since placing first at nationals last semester. However, between their hard work over the summer months and the addition of talented new freshmen, the team is off to a great start.
Placing seven runners in the top 10 at the Sea Gull Opener, Hopkins grabbed first place in the season opener at Salisbury University. Sophomore Hannah Oneda won the race with a time of 21:54 in the 6K. As a result of her performance, she has been named the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Division III Women’s Cross Country Athlete of the Week.
Her first place win happened in an exciting, come-from-behind victory to beat the runner-up Rowan competitor.
However, it was not just her win that led Hopkins to victory.
Five more girls finished in places fourth through eighth, and freshman Tess Meehan rounded out the top ten in tenth place, giving Hopkins an overall score of 23 points. This easily topped Rowan, who came in second with 55 points, and Loyola, who came in third with 64 points.
“I’m really looking forward to the upcoming season,” sophomore Jordan Delane said. “We have been working very hard and I am excited to see it all pay off.
We have a great class of freshmen who are going to contribute a lot to the success of our team this season.”
“We are so psyched to be on the defending national champion team and can’t wait to hopefully see our teams hard work thus far pay off,”freshmen Lara Gaffney and Laura Mears said.
The Men’s team also found victory at the Sea Gull Opener, coming in second place overall.
The Jays, who are currently ranked 18th nationally in Division III cross country, finished with a total of 45 points in the season opener. They followed Navy, who came in first place with an impressive 25 points.
The Blue Jay’s lead pack, which finished in places six through nine, included runners Max Robinson, Schaffer Ochstein, Austin Stecklair and Andrew Cerruzi.
“Our goal was to go out and run at set paces in groups, which everyone did really well,” junior Austin Stecklair said. “Being able to run like that and still do well in competition speaks to the strength of our team this year and was a very promising start to the season.”
Senior Max Robinson also has positive remarks about the team’s performance. “The meet was definitely positive for the team overall,” Robinson said. “We had a very specific game plan to use the race as more of a workout, and we stuck to that plan pretty well for the most part. We’re really excited to move on to our next meet at Penn State and see what shape we’re really in.”
Overall, the men’s team was able to stick to their plan of working in groups at deliberate predetermined paces for the beginning of the race, and then really picking up the pace for the final one and a half miles.
The ability of both the men’s and the women’s teams to work together and run as a team shows that there is a lot of potential for the upcoming season to compete and earn another playoff birth in the Centennial Conference. Both teams will return to participate in the Penn State Invitational on Friday, Sept. 13.
