In a sport that seems to revolve around the performance of the individual, it may be surprising that the Virginia cross country team is emphasizing teamwork. But that is exactly how the men's and women's teams have used most of their practice time to prepare for this weekend's Paul Short Invitational at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa.
"We've been trying to get stronger as a group," senior Steve Finley said. "Just focusing on being more of a unit and working together."
In cross country, team scores are calculated by combining the individual scores of a school's top five finishers. The best teams race together in a tight pack, as the runners rely on one another to set the optimal pace. Should the fifth best runner fall behind, the entire team suffers.
The No. 10 woman's team literally cannot perform any better than it did during its first race of the season at Panorama Farms, where it finished the course with a perfect score of 15. The men's team, however, enters the weekend with a few areas still left unsettled following its season-opening race in which it finished second overall. Many of the top spots on the squad, for instance, are still up for grabs. Senior two-time All-American Emil Heineking, who expects to race this week after resting during the first meet, and senior Ryan Collins, who was the Cavaliers' top finisher in that meet, are undoubtedly the team leaders. The rest of the roster, however, remains uncertain.
The upcoming race will serve as a good barometer for coach Jason Vigilante to judge early on in the season which of his runners are going to step up and earn those places.
"I think the main thing we've been working on is coming together as a group," Vigilante said. "We're trying to identify not only our season goals, but also who our contributors will be, especially on the men's side since we have a very large roster."
Any runner aspiring for one of those top spots will have a golden opportunity to distinguish himself this weekend as more than 100 teams will compete in the race, including No. 12 Iona, No. 14 Villanova, No. 23 Princeton and No. 24 Georgetown. This poses a sharp contrast to what the No. 22 Cavaliers faced during their opening race, which featured a mere total of five in-state teams. That race also took place in the comfortable confines of Virginia's home course, an advantage to any team, thus presenting the team with two new obstacles to overcome this weekend.
"We're trying to prepare ourselves for our first travel meet," Vigilante said. "It is going to be a considerably larger field and there will be some really fine teams we are competing against."
The Cavaliers plan to combat these new challenges as a unit.
"This is our first big race so we just want to see what we can do," junior Anna Corrigan said. "We're focusing on teamwork and working together - really working as a group and using each other"
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