"We had a great meet," men’s cross country coach Pat Mulcahy said of his team’s showing at Saturday, October 27’s SCIAC Championships. "Of the top seven finishers, everyone had a [personal record], and actually 11 out of 12 of the runners on the team had a P.R."

Nate DeFelice ’04 led the Pomona-Pitzer men with a 9th place finish overall, and the team took a strong second at Prado Park in Chino, considered to be the fastest 8,000 meter course the team has run thus far.

DeFelice’s time of 26:47.80 was followed by Braden Boice ’05 (13th overall, 27:28.80), Jake Oken-Berg ’02 (20th overall, 28:12.80), Dan Shickich ’05 (21st overall, 28:17.10), David Marshall ’05 (28th overall, 28:50.20), Golden Krishna ’05 (29th overall, 28:52.90) and Andy Barnette (34th overall, 29:10.90). DeFelice’s run earned him a first team all-SCIAC honor, while Boice and Oken-Berg earned second team all-SCIAC. The top seven runners of the season will compete in the NCAA Division III West Regional meet on Saturday, November 10 at Bush’s Pasture Park in Salem, Oregon. Willamette University is the host, and the top two teams and top four individual runners advance to the National meet November 17.

"Four of our top five were either freshmen or sophomores, so I’m quite excited about the future," said Coach Mulcahy. "We hung on to our second place finish. Even though Oxy and Whittier ran very well, we ran just a little bit better."

When asked about his team’s chances in Salem, Mulcahy replied: "Hopefully we can finish in the top six, and Nate will be among the top eight or ten individual finishers."

The Sagehens’ successful runs at the SCIAC championships highlight a season that has been marked by constant improvement. With such a young team, Mulcahy hopes P-P will be able to dominate the conference the way Claremont-Mudd-Scripps–whose team finished first in the race and whose top seven runners (all seniors and juniors) placed in the top ten spots–is currently dominating the SCIAC.

Meanwhile, the women’s team also earned a trip to Salem, and Laura Bishop ’03 ran the 5,000 meter run in 18:45.10 to win first place overall. Sprinting from third to first in the last mile, Bishop successfully defended her SCIAC Championship Saturday. The Sagehen women’s team took third place out of eight teams.

Bishop’s run also earned her SCIAC Runner of the Year honors for the second straight year. Behind Bishop for Pomona-Pitzer were Stefanie McDougall ’04 (10th overall, 19:36.20), Heather Callahan ’04 (19th overall, 20:31.70), Erin Wagner ’03 (26th overall, 21:02.90), Ann Prouty ’05 (29th overall, 21:12.20), Susie Roley ’04 (31st overall, 21:14.10), and Alex Borst (36th overall, 21:41.30). Bishop and McDougall earned first team all-SCIAC, while Callahan earned second team all-SCIAC.

"We placed third, which is what we were hoping to do, behind CMS and Oxy," said Callahan. "Now Laura has a definite shot at winning Regionals and moving on to Nationals."

Summing up both teams’ performances, Coach Mulcahy said "We finally figured it out, so it’s really cool."