This past weekend, ‘Canes Cross Country traveled to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to compete at Lehigh University’s Paul Short Run.
The race was dedicated to Short, an avid cross country fan in the 1930’s and 1940’s during his time as a football player at Lehigh. Short was devoted to the school and returned after graduation to coach football, baseball, wrestling and lacrosse. Sadly, Short passed away in 1967, but his legacy lives on through the Paul Short Run and his induction to Lehigh’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2000.
This weekend, Miami competed against big cross country schools, such as Harvard, Pitt, Navy, and Penn. Saturday’s lineup consisted of the men’s 8k and the women’s 6k. Regarding the men’s 8k event, senior Cormac O’Brien ran the seventh-fastest time in school history, 25:03.05. Senior Daphnee Lavassas rolled in as the ‘Cane’s fastest women’s runner this weekend, after completing the 6k in 20:01.07, securing the 4th place spot.
Overall, the men placed 61st in the 8k and the women placed 32nd across all divisions. In the Division 1 category, the women Hurricanes finished 30th out of 42 teams and the men’s team finished 40th out of 44 teams. The women scored 743 points and the men scored 1125 points.
Despite the team’s standing, they look to improve as they will travel to Madison, Wisconsin to take on the Wisconsin Pre-Nationals on October 19. Wisconsin will be their last regular season meet before ACC championships on November 1 in Raleigh, North Carolina.