Cross country feels the heat in the first meet

Elizabeth Pacheco Sports Editor

On Saturday, Sept. 8, the men’s and women’s cross country teams began their seasons by hosting the annual Vassar Invitational. Despite unbearable heat conditions, Laura Coogan ’09 and Anthony Lucero ’09 had standout performances, leading the Brewers to capture the title, the women for the fourth year in a row and the men for the fifth.

In the men’s 8k, Lucero finished fifth. He was closely followed by Colin Sanders ’08 in sixth place, Danny McBee ’10 in ninth, John Erickson ’11 in 11th and Dan Liebowitz ’10 in 21st. Their combined times pushed the team past United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) for the coveted title.

For the women’s 5k, Coogan finished first, followed by Elizabeth Jones ’11 in 10th, Anna LeMahieu ’09 in 11th, Kirsten Boreen ’09 in 20th, and Lisl Esherick ’08 in 21st. The top finishes put the team well ahead of second-place St. Rose College.

With conditions abnormally hot for a September afternoon, many runners suffered extreme heat exhaustion and required immediate care. “The nature of being of runner is different then the nature of other athletes,” said Head of Vassar’s Sports Information Robin Deutsch. A runner trains to ignore pain and finish a race no matter the body’s condition, even when the runner is dehydrated and on the brink of complete exhaustion.

Chris Lewis ’09 echoed Deutsch, “As a runner you don’t get to take any breaks or notice any discomforts. Being able to withstand pain and and the desire to stop is expected,” he said.

Unable to stabilize five athletes, the athletic trainer and student-athlete workers on site sent the athletes to Vassar Brothers hospital. Later, one runner checked herself into Vassar Brothers, while another was admitted to St. Francis Hospital. Among the ailing runners were three students from Vassar as well as students from Scranton University, St. Rose College, Lehman College and Stevens Institute of Technology. All of the students are now making strong recoveries.

Recognizing the day’s unusual conditions, Head Coach James McCowan urged his runners to take a different approach in this meet. “We are less concerned with time than we are with getting back into the rhythm of racing and blowing off the dust,” said McCowan. “With that in mind, and knowing that we had USMMA and several DII schools coming up to compete, our plan was to run controlled, tactical races.”

The men were encouraged to run a more relaxed opening mile to lull their competition and then, gradually build on that pace, while the women were told to keep controlled and run an even-paced race. Both men and women were also instructed to try and stay together as a group throughout the course.

“It was upsetting to see the heat-related issues that occurred at the end of the men’s race, but we are looking closely at the days events and developing plans to prevent such problems in the future,” said McCowan. “While heat stroke is not unheard of in early season cross country, we don’t want to see it happen at our race.”