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Georgetown Women Edge Providence By A Point, Villanova Gets Past Butler At Big East Championships

Published by
DyeStat.com   Nov 1st 2024, 6:02pm
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UConn's Chloe Thomas, Villanova's Liam Murphy Win Conference Individual Titles

By Oliver Hinson for DyeStat

Tavan Smith Photos

RESULTS | INTERVIEWS

LEESBURG, Va. – The Georgetown women and Villanova men won close races at the Big East Cross Country Championships Friday morning.

In the women's 6k, the Hoyas went back and forth with Providence the entire race, and they won by one point, scoring 42 to the Friars’ 43. Seniors Chloe Scrimgeour and Lucy Jenks led the way, with Scrimgeour taking third in 19:53 and Jenks finishing fifth in 19:59. 

“We knew it was going to be a battle,” Scrimgeour said. “In the smaller fields, that’s what typically happens, and Providence is really good this year, so we were all just trying to run our best for the team.”

Junior Melissa Riggins took seventh in 20:09, while the next five Hoyas finished in a pack from 13th to 17th.

Providence’s top runner was senior Alex Millard, a graduate transfer from Loughborough University in England. She finished second overall with a time of 19:50. Millard has had a productive first season in the states, taking 19th at the Nuttycombe Invitational in September and fifth at the Princeton Fall Classic two weeks ago.

On the individual side, UConn’s Chloe Thomas took the overall win in 19:36, improving on her seventh place finish from last year. Thomas said she was glad to be able to put together a good string of races in her senior season.

“I’ve been building, building, building for four years,” Thomas said. “I think we really hit a groove, had good synergy, and worked together. I found my groove with my training partners, and it’s just been a year of health and building.”

The Huskies took third overall with 73 points, barely edging out Villanova, who beat them last year.

On the men’s side, Villanova and Butler rehashed their battle from last year, but Villanova came out on top this year, scoring 35 points to Butler's 41. 

Senior Liam Murphy took the overall win, becoming the first repeat individual champion since Pat Tiernan won four Big East titles in a row from 2013 to 2016. Murphy looked unfazed coming across the line, and he said he and his teammates came in with a lot of confidence because of the program’s dominant history in the Big East.

“We have that confidence from the guys who came before us,” Murphy said. “They definitely built a lot of culture here… I was trying to follow in (Tiernan’s) footsteps. When you have guys like that who came before you, you definitely feel confident coming into a race like this.”

His teammate, junior Marco Langon, took second in 23:28, and he also looked strong coming across the line. He said he and Murphy, who worked together for most of the race after pulling away from Butler’s William Zegarski around the halfway mark, were simply racing to get the top two spots.

“We kept telling each other, ‘Keep turning the screws,’” Langon said, “‘and with 2k left, just hammer it in, and loose screws are gonna get nailed down. That’s all it was.”

Villanova’s coach, Marcus O’Sullivan, said he knew the race between them and Butler was going to be tight.

“They’re gonna come ready,” O’Sullivan said. “I knew that. I said it to the team last night. I said, 'It’ll take 35 points to win,' and that’s what it took… all in all, I think it’s one of those things where the team has to emotionally step up, and that’s what they did.”

Most of the teams at the meet will now turn their attention to the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional meet. Last year, Murphy was the individual champion, and the Wildcats took second as a team. O’Sullivan said his team is better trained for the 10k than the 8k, as they do a lot more aerobic work, and the 10k gives them six or seven more minutes to move up throughout the race.

On the women’s side, Georgetown is the defending Mid-Atlantic champion, but with teams like Penn State, West Virginia and Princeton having success so far this year, coach Mitchell Baker believes the competition will be tight, and the Hoyas will have to have an A+ day if they want to advance to the national championships.

“It’s the kind of region where, if you’re not careful, you could get third or fourth,” Baker said. “You might have enough points (to advance to the NCAA Championships), but you never want to play that sort of roulette. You really want to try to take top two and take the drama out of it.”



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