Women Run 5th as Stricker Takes IC4As

Harvard senior Jenny Stricker added yet another victory to her already impressive list of cross country triumphs by capturing the individual championship Saturday at the IC4A meet in Lehigh, Penn.

Stricker was the only Crimson harrier to run well as the rest of the team--which was expected to contend for the team title--ran what Harvard Coach Ed Sheehan called "as bad a race as they could have had" and finished fifth in the 55-team field.

Penn State won the meet with 70 points and qualified for the NCAA meet November 25 at Marquette University along with Villanova and Boston College.

Besides having to contend with the tough competition that regional meets always bring, Harvard also had to face the harsh Pennsylvania weather--35-degree temperatures, snow mixed with sleet--as well as the icy and swampish condition of the course.

In addition, the Crimson just did not have a good day.

Harvard, which easily won the Heptagonal Championships two weeks ago, simply fell apart Saturday.

"There was a lot of team unity the week before [IC4As]," said freshman Jody Dushay. "When we were jogging over the course, we definitely thought that we could do it."

But, besides Stricker, the Crimson got a bad start in the race and by the one-mile mark, victory was out of reach.

"We needed everyone to be in the top 25 at the half-mile mark, but they weren't there," Sheehan said. "It was an uphill struggle after that."

"It was really disappointing," said Kristin Perini, who usually runs second but finished fifth for Harvard at Lehigh. "Everyone was in good shape. If we had had a good day we could have easily beaten them."

It was a totally different story for Stricker, who led the whole race and was never seriously challenged.

Stricker, who also won handily at Heps, covered the five-kilometer course in 17:11, seven seconds ahead of second-place finisher Stacia Prey of Penn State, and 28 seconds in front of Boston University's Lisa Welch, who beat out Stricker at the Greater Boston Championships earlier in the season. All three runners qualified for the NCAA meet.

"She [Stricker] really dominated the race," Sheehan said. "She didn't pour it on. She really enjoyed it."

The Crimson finished the year with a 4-0 Ivy League record, second place at GBCs, first at Heps, and fifth at IC4As.

"When you end on a bad note, it's sort of hard," Dushay said. "But there's a lot to be said for what we did earlier in the season."

On the men's side, the story was not a happy one.

A power failure in Lehigh during the meet prevented official results from being published, but the Crimson finished far back in the field.

Team captain Paul Kent had Harvard's highest finish in 66th place, and Mike Spence was next in 95th.

"Paul definitely had trouble with the weather," Sheehan said. "By and large, it was a difficult weekend."

West Virginia ran off with the team title with 130 points, followed by lona (147) and Boston University (153). Dartmouth, which won Heps, was fifth with 186.

Jean Pierre Ndayisenga of West Virginia was the individual champion, completing the 10-kilometer course in 30:39.

"It was definitely tough out there," said Crimson harrier Seth Goldman. "It was the kind of race where if you wanted to do well, you had to embrace the theory 'no pain, no pain.'"

The meet was the last for seniors Kent and Bill Pate.

"The leadership of those two has just been tremendous," Sheehan said.

Sheehan added that Kent and Pate's leadership will carry over to the track season and "a lot of people will run better in cross country next year as a result of their successes on the track."