Both the men’s and women’s cross country teams proved strong early in the season this past weekend at the Allegheny College Invite. The women’s team won the five-team race and the men’s finished proudly in second, right behind Allegheny.

“Given the showing, we had a lot of really solid performances,” said senior captain Jimmy Taylor. “We’ve been training really hard these past couple of weeks, so, slowly but surely, we’re getting back to full strength.”

The Yeowomen, ranked seventh in the nation, continued their dominance on the course, winning the meet impressively by posting a 1-2-3 finish. Junior Carey Lyons was the first of her teammates to finish the 6k course, doing so in a time of 22 minutes, 49 seconds. Right on her heels, finishing two and three seconds later, respectively, were juniors Kyle Neal and Sarah Jane Kerwin.

“I was overall really happy with how this weekend went,” said Lyons. “While being a really low-key meet, we still got to run our future conference course. It’s nice to know what to expect.”

Lyons was also impressed with the performance of a first-year walk-on who had joined the team only a week prior. “Newcomer Brooke Ortel finished with a smile on her face. It was really nice to see [her] enjoy it.”

Rounding out the scoring five were junior Erica Morelli in seventh place with a time of 23:51 and senior captain Hannah Wolfe who finished 12th with a time of 24:23. The Yeowomen won the race handily, beating the nearest team by a margin of 25 to 51 points.

“Overall, I would say it was a pretty relaxed effort,” said Wolfe.

“We challenge each other while we run. It’s nice when your teammate are at the same pace,” added Lyons.

In the men’s 8k race, the Yeomen had a great showing and finished in second place.  Sophomore Geno Arthur led the team, finishing third overall with a time of 26:16, right under the pace of the two lead runners from Allegheny.

Junior Leo Harrington and sophomore Joshua Urso finished 11th and 12th respectively, with times of 27:15 and 27:17. “I was really excited to see both of them do well. Josh especially just went out aggressively but kept it up the whole time,” said Taylor.

The rest of the top five for the Yeomen were sophomore Robert Moreton and junior Matthew Jefferis, who finished 16th and 30th respectively. “Moreton also put together a good race. I think he’s going to have a great season, especially with that race,” added Taylor.

Host Allegheny College, which had five runners in the top seven, outpaced the Yeomen for first place, winning by a large margin of 45 points. “Allegheny has always been a tough team,” Taylor said. “They’ve always been able to one-up us. However, this season I think we can be more competitive with them come conference [time].”

Taylor was optimistic about the rest of the Yeomen’s season. “We want to be in the right mindset right now,” said Taylor. “Generally, at conference we compete for third place. This year we have lots of young talent and we want to take on that level. Go out, be aggressive and on a good day we can knock off top teams in the nation.”

Wolfe, too, was positive about upcoming races. “Regionals, Nationals — it’s what we train for. I think we’re going to do really well, while making sure, at the end of each day, to challenge each other and have fun,” she said.

The Oberlin cross country teams will be in action next Saturday at the Saint Vincent College Open in Latrobe, PA.