The Observer, September 28, 2007
Volume XL, Issue 5
Women pack up win at Wooster, men take second
The women's cross country team placed first in last Saturday's College of Wooster Invitational, taking their second team title of the season. The Spartans swept the top five spots, with Esther Erb winning her second tournament in a row. Junior Kristen Bowhers came in second, junior Britta Kumley finished third, and freshmen Andrea Fischione and Justine Jeroski placed fourth and fifth, respectively. In cross country, where the team with the lowest point total wins, the Spartans dominated, scoring only 15 points. Their nearest competitor, Kenyon College, had 68.
The men placed second to Ashland University, a Div. II school. Junior Dominic Smith took first overall, with a time of 26:27. Juniors Ryan Gjoraas and Mike Werneiwski finished seventh and ninth, respectively. The men's squad is currently ranked 27th in the nation, up from last week's rank of 33rd. "It's great that we're ranked, but we can't control how other teams perform," said captain Mike Petro. 
"The only thing we can worry about is what we do from this day forward."
The women's team, ranked eighth nationally, up from 12th last week, ran a conservative race. Coach Kathy Lanese came into the tournament with a strategy that emphasized pack running. This conservative approach called for her runners to hold back at the beginning of the race and stay together. The women stuck to the strategy; the Spartan's top five finished only 30 seconds apart. In contrast, the team ran aggressively last week at the Calvin College Invitational, staying with the frontrunners as long as possible. Case's top two runners were 45 seconds apart.
The team ran as a pack in part to recover from last week's tough race. "You can't run hard every week," said Lanese. "You need time to recover." Esther Erb, despite winning the Wooster Invitational, ran her slowest time since her sophomore year; Lanese instructed her to stay with the pack.
The men also ran conservatively. Ten ran together for the first three miles of the five-mile contest. Smith, who told Lanese that he thought that he could win the race, went out ahead and brought home the trophy. It was his first career victory as a Spartan. Smith has been the men's top performer this year, finishing in the top five at each competition this season. Coming to Case as a 15-year-old, Smith is still developing as a runner. He has been able to maintain higher mileage in training this year than he was able to in the past.
Lanese was pleased with freshman Ethan Kleinbaum's performance at Wooster. Kleinbaum, who has been hampered by an iron deficiency, ran what Lanese termed "the best race of anyone in the last two weeks."
The conditions at Wooster were not conducive to fast times. The 85-degree weather was 35 degrees away from ideal. "It was dangerously hot. A lot of athletes went down," said Lanese.
The Spartans have been nagged by injuries. Freshman Reza Mohammadpour, who has already made an impact this year, missed Wooster, as did junior Josh Ward, who was out with pneumonia. Senior Tyler Youngquist, hampered by calf problems, missed last weekend's action and will also be sidelined for next week's Loyola of Chicago Sean Earl Invitational.
Loyola's tournament is divided up into two groups: small teams and large teams. Case qualifies as a small team, and has historically matched up against other Div. III schools. While the men will remain in that portion of the contest, the women, who won the small teams race last year, will move up. "I think running with the big girls will be a good experience for us," said Kumley. Competing against Div. I schools and scholarship athletes is a step that Lanese believes the team must take to prepare for nationals. "We need to face great competition," she said.
