The Oberlin men’s and women’s cross country squads traveled to the Great Lakes Colleges Association Championships last Saturday Sept. 10.

Both teams showed improvement from last year and, in the words of Junior Travis Grout, “This year’s cross country teams are in grave danger of violating the long and proud Oberlin tradition of hapless varsity athletics. The men’s team finished third out of nine at GLCAs last Saturday and three of the fellas took home individual awards. Last season we finished eighth and over the course of the entire season, only one runner on the team won any individual prizes.”

Grout led the team at the meet with a second place finish in the 8000-meter course with a time of 26:56. Sophomore Dan Lesser, who was prevented from competing last year due to injury, began his college cross country career with a sixth place finish in the 8000 meter with a time of 27:11. Juniors Matt Ferris-Smith, John Shaw, and first-year Everett Schlawin finished 21st, 27th, and 30th respectively.

In total, the men’s squad got 85 points. “It’s really exciting to see their hard work over the summer, their steadfast belief in themselves and their tenacity in races pay off. Although the highlights were in the performance of Grout and Lesser, you can’t boil the success of this meet down to two men. 

The entire team competed well and ran, on average, a minute and a half faster than they did at this time last year,” Coach Ray Oppenheimer said.

The men’s squad was certainly not the only one to see improvement. The women’s squad placed second overall with 43 points, a vast improvement from their fourth place finish last year. With 43 points, the Yeowomen placed only 14 points behind Denison, who placed 8th nationally last year.

The Yeowomen achieved this victory despite the fact that they were missing their third lead runner, first-year Aileen Gallagher, at the Championships.

The squad is particularly excited about the fact that, in Sophomore Alison Doniger’s words, “The women’s top seven is mostly freshmen. It’s so great to have so many young people because that means the team can only get better. Ariane [Burwell] is actually the oldest runner of the top seven and she’s only a junior. So we’re not losing anybody this year. Last Saturday was only a preview of the great things to come!”

Doniger was the individual champion, running 19:19 over the 500-meter course. Doniger was followed closely by Burwell, who came in second crossing the line in 19:25. First-years Maddy Davis-Hayes and Flannery Cerbin, and Sophmore Marie Barnett finished the race in 12th, 13th and 15th places, respectively.

Oppenheimer sees this success as only a base from which the Yeowomen will progress.

“I am excited to see how far we progress by the end of the season.  The women have very high standards for themselves and are poised to improve greatly on their fifth place finish in the conference last year. We are blessed with great veteran leadership from Senior captain Rebecca Turnbull.”

Oberlin will next be competing at the Otterbein Invitational on Sept. 24.