As the final major race before the NCAA Championships, the Pre-National Invitational garners a lot of attention from teams across the country.
And with so many teams running in the Furman, S.C., race, major upsets are always a possibility.
It is the ultimate David and Goliath battle of all cross country races.
And in accordance, top-ranked Colorado was slayed by Georgetown, which defeated not only the Buffaloes but also everyone else at the race.
While Georgetown’s win surprised the pollsters, Northwestern fought a different battle — one with the elements.
Restricted by the pack during the first part of the race, the Wildcats dealt with a narrow, wet and humid course that dampened any hope for an upset against a Top 25 team. With several NU runners suffering from allergies before last Saturday’s race, the Cats finished 19th out of 34 teams. Junior Rachel Evjen led the Cats, finishing in 25th place.
“We didn’t run well,” head coach Amy Tush said. “The start was very crowded. A lot of the girls were disappointed in the race.”
Last year, the 6K Pre-National meet was held in Iowa and runners complained that the race was too crowded. As a result, the NCAA decided to break the 78 teams competing in this year’s race into two separate groups.
Competing against 11 of the Top 25 teams in the “purple race,” some NU runners had to stop and walk because of congestion at certain points during the race, despite the NCAA modifications. A sharp turn about 600 meters into the race was too small to accommodate the 354 runners in the 34-team race, freshman Kina Forkins said.
“We had a tough start,” Forkins said. “Our team kind of got boxed in at the front. There were so many girls at the beginning of the race.
“At one point, our whole team came to a standstill.”
Freshman Diana Hossfeld, who ran for NU behind only Evjen, said she stopped at a turn and waited for other runners to get through before moving ahead.
“We didn’t get out as well as we could have,” said Hossfeld, who scored 53 points with a time of 22:28. “It was pretty crowded. After about a mile, the crowd started to thin out. There were also a lot more hills than the other courses (we’ve run on).”
Individually, junior Karen Rogers finished right behind Hossfeld, coming in at under 23 minutes — good for a spot in the top 100. Junior Nicole Kuznia placed 137th and senior Sara Jurek 161st, although they were within 30 seconds of each other. Sophomore Nora Colligan (167th) and Forkins (168th) rounded out the rest of the NU scorers with the same time of 24:01.
During the race, Hossfeld said she lost focus on the course for the first time this year. It wasn’t until she realized that she was beginning to settle in with the pack of runners around her that she was able to orient herself.
“I did my best to snap out of it,” she said. “But then I got a second wind and started to push myself. The course definitely turned out to be one of the toughest we’ve run.”
Small peculiarities that are specific to the course, such as a stretch of concrete, proved cumbersome to NU spikes and loomed large in the minds of the runners.
“The night before I visualized the course and I looked over it,” Forkins said. “I think that if you run this race, you are now mentally prepared for the entire season. In terms of the whole atmosphere, the people out there and all the people cheering, if you can mentally handle this race, every other meet just seems tiny compared to this.”
Although she was disappointed with the results, Tush said the Big Ten Championships, which will be held in two weeks, will not be as crowded and will be on a flatter course — something that the team will be prepared for.
“The (South Carolina) course itself was deceiving and one of the hardest we’ve run,” Tush said. “There are parts where the girls run on a scenic path, which is not what we’re used to. But it’s important to note that there is a maximum of 99 runners in the Big Tens.
“Our girls love it and I think they are prepared for that and will run fast.”
