How did the University of Connecticut women’s cross country team spend its nor’easter weekend? It ran 6,000 meters in the cold rain and whipping winds down at the Princeton Meadows Challenge, of course.
To the Huskies’ credit, there wasn’t much else to do with downed trees and live power lines blanketing the roads up in Storrs; an escape to New Jersey — to beautiful Princeton University, at that — seemed like a nice getaway from the storm-struck campus.
New Jersey, though, was hit with the brunt of the storm, with coastal flood warnings being issued throughout the weekend and wind gusts reaching as high as 60 mph.
Saturday morning’s trudge through the sludge (and the rain and the wind) inevitably presented issues for the Huskies, who placed ninth out of 17 teams with 234 points, but there were overarching positives to take away from the third meet of the season.
UConn finished the women’s 6,000-meter run with an average time of 21 minutes, placing above Big East foes Villanova (11th) and Georgetown (16th) as well as the proud programs of Arizona State (14th) and Texas A&M (12th). Connecticut finished eight points behind the hosting Tigers in eighth (226 points) and placed four runners in the top 50 — a feat only six other teams accomplished.
Sophomore Sasha Letica led the Huskies with a time of 20:47.9, good for 35th overall, while sophomore Brooke Strauss (20:48.9) and freshman Allison Wasson (20:50.5) finished less than three seconds later in 37th and 38th, respectively — a promising sign for UConn’s burgeoning core of underclassmen.
Senior Malin Rahm finished in 46th at 21:02.1, while junior Claire Paci rounded out the Huskies’ top 100 finishers at 21:32.1.
Loghan Hughes, another senior, finished 102nd overall with a time of 21:43.4, while freshman Courtney Krawiecki (21:48.7) finished 113th.
Hayley Martin and Samantha Moore rounded out Connecticut’s nine-deep rotation, finishing 119th and 160th, respectively.
The Huskies have ground to make up on Big East rival Providence, which finished behind only national powers Alabama and North Carolina in third. The Friars and Huskies will meet at the Big East Championships in 32 days on Oct. 30.
UConn will run next on Oct. 16 at the Pre-Nationals tune up in Terre Haute, IN, giving the team over two weeks to rest before the end-of-year grind commences and bleeds into the start of the indoor season.