Cross Country at the Wheaton Invitational
Friday, September 2 | 5 p.m. (women), 5:30 p.m. (men)
Highland Park – Mark Coogan Course | Attleboro, Mass.
WHAT TO KNOW
• Babson will begin its season at the Wheaton Invitational for the seventh consecutive season on Friday afternoon.
• A dual meet from 2015-19, the Beavers and Lyons will also compete against Bridgewater State, Clark, Smith and Springfield.
• The women will run a 2-mile race and the men will compete in a 5K.
A LOOK BACK AT 2021
• Under the direction of 19th-year head coach Russ Brennen, who earned men's co-coach of the year accolades, the Babson men placed third for the first time since 2016 and the women came in 11th at the NEWMAC Championships last fall.
• The men's squad followed up a strong performance at the league meet by finishing seventh at the NCAA East Regional Championship last November. The Babson women came in 25th at regionals.
SCOUTING THE BEAVERS
• The Babson women feature a new-look roster that includes six runners in their first year with the program.
• The Beavers' lone returner from last year's squad is senior Nicole Johns, who recorded the team's second fastest average times in both the 5k (21:26) and 6k (27:17) last year.
• The Babson men return their top five runners and six harriers in all, highlighted by junior Anthony Rodriguez, who became the first male in program history to qualify for the NCAA Division III Championship meet last season.
• Rodriguez finished the year with an average 8k time of 25:31, while graduate student Ryan Wilson (26:50) and senior Yudai Yamakawa (26:54) both finished among the top 30 at the NEWMAC Championship and the top 60 at regionals in 2021.
SCOUTING THE MEN'S COMPETITION
• The Springfield men finished just seven points behind Babson at last year's league meet and returns four of their top five finishers led by senior John DeRosa.
• Wheaton, which finished fifth at the 2021 NEWMAC Championship, brings back just four harriers, while Clark has eight returners from a squad that placed seventh last October.
• Bridgewater State came in third in the MASCAC behind sophomore Kevin McBirney and junior Sam Steere, who both earned all-league accolades.
SCOUTING THE WOMEN'S COMPETITION
• Smith, which was picked second in the preseason coaches' poll, came in third at last season's conference meet and returns a pair of All-NEWMAC performers in senior Laurel Kruger and sophomore Pria Parker.
• Springfield, which came in seventh at the 2021 NEWMAC Championship, and eighth-place Wheaton both return a number of veterans and will look to push into the top half of the conference.
• Bridgewater State returns a trio of all-league performers and placed second at the MASCAC Championship last October.
2021 WHEATON INVITATIONAL RECAP
• Rodriguez edged Wheaton's Dominic Scalfini by one second and the Babson men claimed five of the top seven spots on the way to finishing first in last year's 5K meet at Highland Park.
• Wilson (4th), Yamakawa (5th), sophomores Julian Ivarra (6th) and Zachary Walker (7th), and senior Gabriel Ortega (10th) all recorded top-10 finishes for the Beavers, who posted a 36-point victory over the Lyons.
• The Babson women came in fourth overall and were led by Alyssa Keith, who crossed the finish line with a time of 13:15 in the 2-mile meet.
SETTING THE PACE
• The Babson men, who recorded their lowest point total in program history (241) at last November's NCAA East Regional, posted nine of the top 47 individual times in school history last year.
• Rodriguez shattered the 1991 school record set by Babson Hall of Famer Joey Curtis '92 by 37 seconds with his time of 24:29 in the 8k at UMass Dartmouth last September and ran 25:10 at the NCAA Division III Championship, which currently ranks fourth in program annals.
• Wilson achieved a personal-best time of 25:17 at the UMass Dartmouth Invitational that ranks fifth all-time, while Ivarra (26:12) and Yamakawa (26:15) both posted top-50 times on the career list at the same meet.
PRESENCE IN THE POLLS
• The Babson men were picked to finish third and the women 10th when the NEWMAC released its preseason coaches' polls on Wednesday.
• The Beaver men boast 12 consecutive top-five finishes at the NEWMAC Championship but have recorded back-to-back third-place results since the early 1990s as a member of the Constitution Athletic Conference (CAC).
• The men are also ranked seventh in the USTFCCCA East Region preseason poll.
CONFERENCE PREVIEW
• Friday's meet will serve as a precursor to the 2022 NEWMAC Championships, which will be held at Highland Park on October 30.
UP NEXT
• Babson returns to action on Saturday, September 17, at the UMass Dartmouth Invitational.
