With high expectations built up from a number of impressive races throughout the fall campaign, the men’s and women’s cross country teams headed to Columbia University’s Van Cortlandt Park this past Friday for the Heptagonal Championships. Overall, the results mostly met the runners’ expectations, with the men tying for third place with Dartmouth while the women finished in fourth place for the second consecutive year.

The women raced first, and despite significant course changes that took place due to construction, they still performed very well. The women were led by senior Stephanie Pancoast, who earned All-Ivy honors for the second year in a row with a personal best time of 17:40.9 to place ninth overall. Following closely behind were freshman Genna Hartung (11th place), freshman Katie Kellner (23rd place), sophomore Meghan Brown (26th place) and freshman Kelsey Karys (28th place). For the women, a major strategy going into Heps was to keep the race in perspective to just continue the successes they have had from past races.

“Overall, I think it was a really great race,” said freshman Cara Costich. “I have never been to a Heps race before, and I think that our coaches did a really great job emphasizing to us to not get overly nervous and to just go out and do our best.”

In the women’s races, Princeton won its fourth straight Heps title over Harvard in second place, Columbia in third place and the Red in fourth place. Even though the Red was not able to come out on top against those teams, the runners still feel that they have the talent and the skills on their team to place higher than they actually did at Heps on Friday.Still running: Junior Nate Edelman strides during the Red’s meet against Army on Sept. 11. Edelman finished fourth overall at the Heptagonal Championships.

“We definitely have the capability to run better than we did to beat some of the teams that beat us at Heps,” said Costich. “We have the talent. As a team, we are really strong, but I know we will improve to beat teams like Columbia and Harvard in upcoming races.”

The men raced second, securing a third-place podium finish for a third straight year. Among the highlights was junior Nate Edelman who ultimately finished in fourth place with an outstanding final five-mile time of 25:31.2. Following behind Edelman were junior Matt DeSilva (14th place) who earned his first career All-Ivy honors and seniors Charlie Hatch (21st place), Joel Frost-tift (24th place) and Dale Taylor (27th place). The Red’s final standing was a direct result of standout performances from the team’s veterans.

“Third place is really solid, so we can’t complain,” Edelman said. “We finished really well, and we ran really strong. The seniors this year really stepped up though; in this race, they really contributed and made a difference … while third place is good, we were hoping to do better though.”

In the end, Columbia and Princeton placed first and second respectively, edging out the Red for the Heps title. While the Red men did achieve a podium finish, their expectations coming in were actually for something even better, hoping to actually come out with the Heps title. Looking back on the race, the talent of many of the other squads and changes to the course made this more difficult than it seemed.

“It was a tougher course this year,” said Edelman. “The last couple of miles were really tough in particular because they usually try to space out the hills a little bit, but this time, it seemed like they were squeezed together more. Maybe with a different racing strategy, we might have been able to improve our times a bit. Also, teams like Columbia and Princeton are very good, so we might have underestimated the talent of the field a little bit too.”

As the fall cross country campaign comes to a close in the next two weeks, Cornell will head to the NCAA Regional Championships at Franklin Park in Boston on Nov. 14th. After running at Heps, many of the runners have gotten big racing experience that they hope will help them improve in future races and future seasons.

“I haven’t had Heps before, so the race was definitely an eye-opener,” said Costich. “I think it helped build up my experience level now that I know more what to expect at those big events. It also helps that the upperclassmen keep setting good examples for us by stepping up in races.”