2008 Men's X-C Season Outlook

The 2008 Williams men’s cross country team will build around four returning runners from last year’s top-seven squad that garnered 2007 finishes of 10th at the NCAA Championships, runner-up at the New England Division III Championships, first at the Little Three Championships, and on their home course a first at the NESCAC Championships and the ECAC Championships, the latter title nabbed by the team’s second-seven.

Edgar Kosgey '10

Leading the quartet of top returnees is junior Edgar Kosgey who finished just one place away from earning All-American recognition (36th at NCAAs) in a field of 280 athletes. Kosgey won the 2007 Little Three and New England Division III Championship (NE DIII Champs) individual crowns, and earned First Team honors with a third place at the NESCAC Championships in a breakout season. Entering only his third year of running, Kosgey should be ready for another leap in performance.

The other returning 2007 NCAA Championships competitors are senior and tri-captain Brendan Christian (120th) and juniors Corey Watts (150th) and Connor Kamm (184th). Christian captured Second Team All-NESCAC honors last fall. As a sophomore, he placed third in the NE DIII Champs. Watts stepped up as a sophomore in 2007 to be the most consistent high finisher for the Ephs with a 5th place finish at the Little Three Championships, 13th at NESCACs (Second Team) and a 22nd at the NE DIII Champs. Kamm followed a surprise first-year campaign in which he placed 2nd overall at the Little Three Championships with another top-seven sophomore season with a 10th place finish at the Little Three race and 42nd finish at the NE DIII Champs.

Head coach Peter Farwell on Kosgey, Watts, Christian, and Kamm:

"All four of the returning athletes from last year’s NCAA squad line up this fall after studying or working abroad for part of the last eight months — Kosgey back in his native Kenya and Watts in several nations in east Africa this summer, and Christian in Uganda and Kamm in Argentina during the spring academic semester. Typically such time away from the team would leave question as to their fitness, but it’s clear from their enthusiastic updates that their training and passion for the sport has continued, or gained, in consistency as they take on new challenges in life and in running.”

With three losses to graduation from last year’s top-seven squad — Corey Levin, an All-NESCAC runner in 2007 who finished 92nd at the NCAAs, Morgan Seybert (All-NESCAC 2006) and Grant Burgess (16th NESCAC) — head coach Peter Farwell will be counting on the continued development of the remaining undergraduates to fill in and help extend the Ephs' string of regional and national success.

The Ephs will draw on a solid depth of talent to fill out the top seven squad, notably from their ECAC Championship team that returns six of seven. Rising senior Aaron Schwartz was the first Eph to finish at the ECACs as he captured 4th place.  Junior Jeff Stenzel was 5th, rising senior and track All-American Macklin Chaffee placed 11th (Chaffee set an Eph record for the 1,500 at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships when he finished second in a school-record time of 3:47.43), and rising senior tri-captains Stephen Van Wert and Brooks Udelsman garnered 16th and 20th, respectively. Senior Ben Swimm closed the door as the seventh man in 24th place.

Coach Farwell on the returning runners from last fall’s ECAC team:

“This senior group took a lot of pride in making up the majority of last year’s ECAC team. Schwartz has missed training time while studying abroad, but 2007 shows him capable of racing well at the right time. Chaffee showed flashes of cross-country strength last fall that should be enhanced by the confidence he gained during the track season. Tri-captains Van Wert and Udelsman (along with Christian) continue to be bedrocks of the program and are looking for deserved individual breakthroughs as they balance their new leadership roles. Swimm, who also studied abroad during the spring, came through with clutch performances last fall to earn himself a spot on the squad and will look to finish his career on a high note. Junior Stenzel has dealt with several injuries but should continue to come back and show his talent for the trails and grass.”

Other juniors, notably Jeff Perlis and Matt Deady (ECAC members in 2006), will be back on the trails after a sophomore season hampered by injury.

With plenty of talent, work ethic, and flashes of success in 2007, the sophomore class should begin to assert themselves from a performance standpoint to couple with their demonstrated enthusiasm for running and the team. After serving as alternate for last year’s ECAC squad, Brian Cole fought through injury and sickness and began to show his talent during outdoor track. He should take a leap in progress over the 8,000-meter race distance. Joining him in that boat, Mike Geary saw similar struggles in 2007 but enters the season healthy and motivated. Dan Franck, Will Palmer, Andrew Gaidus, and Jason Rapaport give the sophomore class high expectations as they take their second crack at collegiate cross-country.
 
A large group of first years are expected to push the returnees for a spot in the top seven and second seven. Members of the class of ’12 gained local, regional and national success as high school harriers and will join the other talented and hungry Ephs in developing as they wear the Williams singlet.

Coach Farwell on this year’s Little Three Championships:

“Like every year, Amherst and Wesleyan will prove to be tough competitors as we plan to host them on our home course. Although the tally has reached twenty wins in a row against our rivals, a one-point loss to Amherst at last fall’s NE DIII Champs leaves us fully aware that this year’s meet will not come easily. We’ve been fortunate to come away with a lot of very close wins over the years and hope this year finds us on top again.”

Brendan Chrisitian '09

Farwell's Ephs will open the 2008 season on the road in New York's famed Van Cortlandt Park when they compete in the Fordham University Invitational.
 
Other key meets on the schedule for this season include home opener 20-team Purple Valley Invitational September 27th, an October 11th visit to Boston's Franklin Park to run in the Division I New Englands, the Ephs will host the Little Three Championships on October 25th at Mt. Greylock HS.

Bates will host the NESCAC Championships at Pineland Farms in New Gloucester, Maine on Saturday, November 1st. “The NESCAC Championship is always a barn-burner,” Farwell remarked, “but we’ll prepare to fend off the challenge posed by Amherst, Trinity and others and go for our 3rd consecutive title.”

The Ephs will host, for the first time, the NCAA New England Qualifier at Mt. Greylock High School (Saturday, November 15th). This meet determines the New England region's team and individual qualifiers to the NCAA Championships, which will be run the following Saturday in Hanover, Indiana.

Two teams automatically qualify, with up to three more possibly making it as ‘at large’ qualifiers. Amherst, Trinity, Keene State, MIT and others will battle it out with the Ephs, who certainly know the home course backwards and forwards, and are truly looking forward to regaining the title they won in 2006.