2007 season preview

September 6, 2007

NORTON, MA- With over half of the combined 21-member Wheaton College men's and women's cross country programs' runners categorized as newcomers, there is plenty of unknown for ninth-year head coach Paul Carr and his harriers entering the 2007 fall season. Six freshmen dot the 10-member men's roster, while five of the 11 competing women are first-year collegiate runners.

"We don't have a good grasp of what we have right now," said Carr, "and even after the first weekend I'm not sure we'll have that much better of a grasp. The newcomers need some time to learn the system. We have to get them to think like college student-athletes. From academics to athletics, everything here is going to be more intense than it was in high school."

Joining Carr on staff is fourth-year assistant coach Kim Spence '04 and first-year assistant Steve Carr, who is of no relation to Paul. Steve Carr assisted with the throwers and vaulters for Wheaton's track and field program last season and will continue in that role this year. The trio returns five women and four men from teams that finished fifth at their respective New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Championship meets in 2006.

With such green teams, the coaching staff is in a tough predicament regarding the number of scheduled meets versus practices. "This is kind of a double-edged sword for us right now because we need the meet experience, but we also need the practice," said Paul Carr. "We might slightly tweak our schedule to help get more workouts in earlier, which would allow us to build the athletes up and get them the meet experience down the line. It's a tough balancing act. We won't know until the end of the season if we did it right or wrong."

The women will heavily rely on senior All-American Megan Brousseau (Attleboro, MA/Attleboro) and junior Amanda Rawson (Dudley, MA/Shepherd Hill Regional). Brousseau is just the program's second three-time NEWMAC All-Conference performer, having finished as the runner up during the last two league championship meets, while Rawson just missed picking up her first all-conference recognition after taking 15th overall last year.

Seniors Jessie Buonaccorsi (Shutesbury, MA/Amherst Regional) and Mary Ostrander (San Diego, CA/Francis Parker School) join Brousseau as fourth-year runners, while junior Lauren Reddy (Walnut Creek, CA/Carondelet) and sophomore Katie Pratt (Litchfield, CT/Litchfield) round out the returning corps. Pratt placed 31st and Reddy 36th a year ago at the NEWMAC Championship.

New to the scene are sophomore Sarah Brand (Cincinnati, OH/Seven Hills School) and freshmen Ekaterina Gould (Wayland, MA/Wayland), Erin Jaske (Highlands Ranch, CO/Rock Canyon), Christina Nelson (Cranston, RI/Saint Mary Academy-Bay View) and Ariel Perry (Sweden, ME/Fryeburg Academy).

The men enter the season extremely young, devoid of seniors with just two juniors and a pair of sophomores. Having lost their top two runners from last year's conference meet, the Lyons will lean on juniors Scott Hafferkamp (Merrimack, NH/Merrimack) and Dan Libon (Foxboro, MA/Foxboro) to help lead this year's team.

Sophomores Andrew Brunhofer (Westfield, NJ/Westfield) and Miles Souza (Norton, MA/Saint Sebastian's School) will also look to make impacts after having one collegiate season under their belts.

The six first-year athletes are Matt Brousseau (Attleboro, MA/Attleboro), Colin Fahey (Waltham, MA/Weston), Nick Kacher (Waltham, MA/Waltham), Natan Levy (Fort Lauderdale, FL/Pine Crest School), Brandon Waltz (South Thomaston, ME/Rockland District) and Jonah Zimet (Portland, ME/Waynflete School).

With the programs' goals never changing from year to year, cross country will once again strive to win the conference meet, send a team to the national championship and be the top two academic teams on campus. For individual runners, the coaching staff includes Academic All-Americans and All-Americans as the highest objective.

"I believe you have to have lofty goals, and I don't think it's always the worst thing in the world if you don't meet those goals," added Paul Carr. "You find out what went wrong and go back at it again. I think setting a goal and going after it is more important than necessarily reaching it. You might fall on your face, but you don't want to aim to be mediocre."

This page is maintained by Scott Dietz. Last updated on 2/27/09.
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