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.

After months of training, the men’s and women’s cross country teams are finally heading into their biggest race of the season: the Ivy League Heps. Starting this afternoon, the Ancient Eight will battle it out at Van Cortlandt Park in Bronx, N.Y.

The women’s squad will be racing first, with high expectations based on quality of preparation and a talented core group of runners.

“They’re pretty excited about this,” said head coach Lou Duesing. “Every week their training has gotten better, and in each race they’ve gotten better … this is their opportunity.”

The women finished fourth at last year’s Heps, but this year they are looking to improve upon that record. However, they also know that they will be up against some tough competition.

With the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships less than a week away, the Cornell cross country teams are using every available opportunity to gear themselves up and prepare for the big day. Friday’s John Reif Memorial Run was no exception, as the Cornell runners got in the spirit and competed one last time on their very own Moakley course.

The Reif Run is considered a special annual event for the Red, as many local runners—and even Cornell alumni—reappear to compete in an exciting and welcoming atmosphere.

The Ancient Eight came together this past weekend to redefine the age-old moniker, “Ivy League,” at the Gordon Track in Cambridge, Mass. At the most important track meet of the season, the Indoor Heptagonals, both Red squads flew by their Ivy counterparts in dominating fashion.

On the women’s side, the Most Outstanding Performer went to track phenom senior Jeomi Maduka, who is now tied for the most individual Indoor Heps championships with 10. Maduka broke three meet records in the triple jump, long jump and 200 m, with measurements and times of 43-10 1/2 ft., 20-6 1/2 ft. and 24.51 s. Her measurements in the triple and long jump were both NCAA autoqualifiers.

The men’s and women’s track and field teams will travel to Harvard over the weekend for the Heptagonal Championships — “Definitely the biggest meet of the year from a team standpoint,” according to senior co-captain Andrew Miller. “Everything that we’ve done so far has been working towards this meet and the next two weeks.”

On the men’s side, the Red has won four of the last six Ivy League titles and enters this year’s competition fresh off a historic performance in 2008. A year ago, Cornell outpaced second place Princeton en route to a meet-record 205 points.

Despite valiant efforts by the cross country teams, the Red was no match for the Princeton Tigers this weekend. Cornell’s men’s and women’s teams both placed in the top half of the Ivy League standings, but neither was able to match the Tigers at the Heptagonal Championships in New York City on Friday.

On the men’s side, the Red slipped one spot from its ranking last year and finished behind Princeton and Columbia. The Tigers won the Ivy League crown for the second straight year, tallying 58 points. Columbia finished just behind Princeton with 61 points. The Red was third with 75.

“We were hoping for a higher finish, but the other two teams in front of us ran great races,” said senior Zac Hine. “It wasn’t what we wanted, but we ran as hard as we could.”

Madness? THIS IS SPARTA … I mean ITHACA!

I am not even kidding: if there has ever been a time to show your school spirit and attend a Cornell sports event, this is it. Cornell sports are absolutely amazing this Friday through Sunday.

You have a chance to see three teams with projected NCAA entrants: that’s three teams with some of our nation’s best athletes, right here, at Cornell!

THIS IS BLASPHEMY!

Cornell sports … advancing on a national level?