After a season of more than hundreds of kilometers and even more hours of running time, the men’s cross country team finished sixth place, less than a minute and only nine points short of achieving a fourth place finish at the Southern Conference race at Western Carolina University on Saturday.

It was good enough for the team’s best finish in Elon’s history thanks to a pack of runners finishing together.

“On the guys’ side we have worked to run in the pack all season and they did it,” coach Jackie Sgambati said. “Our top four ran together.”

Those four runners junior Eric Lewandowski, freshman Matthew Richardson, junior Ricky Myers and senior Eric Garren, all finished within 18 seconds of each other and in 22th, 26th, 27th and 29th places respectively.

The men’s team was bitten by the injury bug in the weeks before the conference race. Myers was struggling with a hamstring injury and junior Jason MacCullom, who finished 57th, was working through a calf injury.

“They still ran their absolute best and you can’t ask for anything more,” Sgambati said.

The women’s team achieved season-best times and in some cases personal records, but even with all that improvement, the team managed to finish only in fifth place.

“I had three girls run their best time of their season by 30 seconds,” Sgambati said.

Sophomore Caitlin Beeler stole the show when she edged out race favorite Brenna Burns of Davidson University. Beeler finished with a time of 18:00.77, which is one of the top-10 finishes in women’s cross country history, a section of the record book that Beeler holds nearly to herself. Beeler was ranked seventh in the conference. Junior Anna Mae Flynn, who holds nearly every other spot on the women’s cross country top-10 finishes list that is occupied by Beeler, was ranked 23rd, but finished 17th with a time of 18:44.15.

Southern Conference Freshman of the Year candidate Emily Fournier [18:35.91] finished 12th after a pre-race ranking of 26th. She was the third fastest freshman in the race.

Senior Katelyn Ealer [19:16.31] and juniors Colleen McCarthy [9:21.37] and Katie White [19:21.91] finished 35th through 37th. McCarthy set a personal best time by 30 seconds.

“Even though we were fourth last year and placed fifth this year [I’m happy with the result],” Sgambati said. “They definitely peaked when we wanted them to peak. Which is what you try to do all season.

“You try to put your best foot forward on the big race day, on conference day. And they did it, we just got beat.”

But even with finishes lower than she expected, Sgambati was satisfied.

“Our teams went out there and gave it all they had,” she said. “You can’t ask for more than that.”

Managing Editor: Justin Hite - 10/31/07