Princeton men first in Ivy League; sophomore Curham earns all-America honors

MEN’S RECAP

On Saturday at the Heptagonal Ivy League Championship, four miles into the 8k (4.9-mile) race, four of the top seven runners wore Princeton uniforms. “I knew we were going to win, and for me that was very exciting,” head coach Jason Vigilante said.

As the fifth runner crossed the finish line in twelfth place, all of the runners who had not raced and those who had already finished joined together in a giant hug to celebrate what they already recognized as a crushing victory.

“Alumni were there, coaches were there, parents were there, so it was not only a team-wide celebration, but it was truly a Princeton cross country community celebrating,” senior captain Connor Martin said. “Pure domination of the Ivy League was a great day, and another Ivy League Championship under the belt was an amazing feeling.” Due to injuries, Martin has not raced this season.

Not only did the team win Heps with a decisive 30 points, one of the top ten total Heps scores ever and well ahead of No. 2 Cornell’s 74, but the race also highlighted some individual performances. Junior Michael Sublette, a consistent scorer this season, led the team for the first time to come in second place overall.

“Seeing Michael finally come out on top was not only a symbol of the pure domination but was also a great moment to see all of the hard work come to light,” Martin said. “He has been very dedicated the past few years putting the miles in.”

Although winning Heps was, according to Vigilante, “without question the highlight of our season,” it was just one of several exciting races for the men’s cross country team this semester. At the start of the season, the men opened with a dominant performance over Yale and Harvard at the HYP meet. Senior Sam Pons led the team in a spectacular first-place individual finish with a time of 24:20.7.

More recently, on Nov. 14, the team battled against tough competition to place fourth at the NCAA regionals. On Nov. 22, the team placed second at the IC4A Championships in Van Cortland Park, New York. Sublette led the team in an impressive first-place individual finish with a time of 24:57.0 for the five mile course.

Although the team had hoped to compete at the NCAA national championships, Vigilante identified two main factors that prevented them from attaining that goal. “The first was that we had some sub-par performances at Notre Dame and Wisconsin. The other was having a good day but not a terrific day at the NCAA regional. Either one of those two events, had they gone the other way, we would have been fine.”

Vigilante notes that Princeton was only behind Georgetown by 14 points at the NCAA regionals, and Georgetown ultimately placed seventeenth nationally. “We have a very good team but we were not able to demonstrate it,” he said.

“We’ll learn,” says Martin. “We’re going to lose a couple of seniors, but we’re a very young team. We have a lot of very talented freshmen and sophomores on the team and they’ll have a chip on their shoulder next year.”

Looking toward the upcoming track season and next year’s cross-country season, Martin says that the team will be focusing on “staying hungry, staying healthy and doing what the Princeton cross-country and track team has always done.”

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“As we concluded the season, we do have a lot of bright points and fantastically gifted athletes. I’m looking forward to a great year and putting ourselves in a position to defend our title next year,” says Vigilante.

WOMEN’S RECAP

On Sept. 12 at the Yale Golf Course, the Princeton women started their season with an amazing race. Led by sophomore Megan Curham, the top four runners came in second through fifth place, and freshman Natalie Rathjen rounded out the scorers with seventh place. “Watching that race, I saw that a lot of girls – a lot of the team members – from four through eight had stepped up over the summer,” coach Peter Farrell said.

This handy victory over Harvard and Yale was just one of several incredible races for the Princeton women’s cross country team this year. Princeton would go on to place seventh at the Notre Dame Invitational, sixth at Pre-Nationals in Terra Haute, Ind., and second at Heps. They improved their placing from last season by four places in Indiana and two at Heps. The team also placed third at both the NCAA regional meet and the ECAC championships; both were two-place improvements from last year, when the team placed fifth at both of these competitions. Although the team struggled with injuries, which ultimately may have contributed to its not advancing to the national championships this year, it still made significant improvements.

“I think a highlight was improving a lot in general from last year. Even though we didn’t make nationals like the team did last year, we did a lot better if we’re looking at the seasons side-by-side,” senior captain Lindsay Eysenbach said.

Senior captain Erika Fluehr, also a senior, added, “The team grew a lot deeper this year.”

Megan Curham, now a two-time All-American for cross country, sees the Notre Dame race as one of the highlights of the season. “During the race, I was just told to go with the lead pack and run with them. The entire race I heard people cheering for Princeton behind me, and when I looked, junior Kathryn Fluehr was just behind me. When you’re running a race with your teammates right behind you, it gives you confidence and it’s a great feeling.”

Curham raced at the NCAA National Championship meet on Nov. 22, placing No. 18 overall with a time of 20:21.7 and qualifying as an All-American for the second time in her two years competing at the collegiate level.

“She ran a courageous race to run a terrific time in a difficult field,” Farrell said. “I asked her to be between twenty-five and thirty at the mile mark and she was twenty. She was overstepping the plan, and she held on against a really strong challenge from really strong athletes to finish eighteenth.”

“I wanted to improve from last year, when I placed thirty-fourth, so my goal was really to get somewhere in the twenty range,” Curham said. “I came in eighteenth, so that was definitely higher than I had a goal for. I’m happy with it, but I’m not really satisfied, because I feel like I could do better and I learned from parts of the race about what I can improve. I know that next season I can improve even more.”

Going into track and the next cross country season, the team is hopeful for even stronger performances. “People had really good mindsets going into the races and the workouts and it made everything, no matter what we did, a little bit better. I think that will really help us next year,” Curham notes.

Farrell identified several main factors that will help guide the team to amazing performances in the next year. “We placed third at ECAC with some of our top seven out. [Junior] Katie Little, who typically runs fifth for us, placed fifth overall,” he said. “Megan has reestablished herself as a national competitor. You take that, we get back Emily de la Bruyere. We get back Lizzie Bird who was ill, and we get back two kids who get back from being injured.”

Erika Fluehr identified another strength of the team looking towards future performances.

“We did a really good job of working together, so hopefully we can carry that through track,” she said.

“I can’t help but get excited about next year because we are returning a really dynamite team,” Farrell explained. Eysenbach echoes his sentiments, saying, “I’m super jealous of next year’s team. They’re already going to be so good and everyone who is returning has room for improvement.”