Courtesy of Brian Beard

Last Saturday, the cross country team hosted its first home meet in two years due to the Pickard Field renovations. The Polar Bears competed alongside athletes from Colby College, Bates College and Tufts University with both the Bowdoin men’s and women’s teams placing second. Saturday’s meet was unique because the athletes only competed two-thirds the distance of a typical race length—the women ran a 4.5k as opposed to a 6k and the men ran a 6k rather than an 8k. The purpose of this was to allow for a slightly relaxed, gradual introduction into the collegiate season after a summer off.

The home course advantage proved true for the Polar Bears in the meet’s results. Lauren Traum ’25 was Bowdoin’s fastest runner, finishing sixth overall. Bowdoin runners claimed tenth through 14th places with  notable debut performances by Angelina Hickey ’28 (10th), Cam Meyer ’28 (11th) and Kaylee Hale ’28 (12th), as well as contributions by upperclassmen Delaney Jones ’26 (13th) and Tori Bacall ’26 (14th).

On the men’s side, Will Goddard ’25 placed first for Bowdoin and second overall. Three Polar Bear runners placed within the top ten including Seamus McDonough ’25 (4th), Matthew Servin ’27 (7th) and Ben Bockmann ’25 (9th).

Head Coach Ben Raphelson shared the team’s strategy for the weekend, which emphasized honing skills early in the season with an eye towards later championship meets.

“We’ve been discussing looking at competition as a skill that we work out just like anything else. Regular season meets … are opportunities for us to experiment a little bit and refine strategies that we’ll use when we get to those championships,” Raphelson said.  “I felt good about what we were trying to accomplish, which was running pretty successfully in groups and staying relaxed and then moving up in the race.”

Jones also commented on the mental strategy Raphelson encouraged the team to try during the meet.

“I was really excited to get to run with my teammates and wanted to try my best to stick with them and really work together, because cross country is so often written off as not being a team sport, but it really is a team sport,” Jones said.“It’s very motivating and helpful to run with the teammates that you’re working out with every day, because it can help bring a lot of confidence to each other.”

Since races were shortened, exact comparisons to past performances are difficult to make, but Andrea Becker ’26 is excited about the team’s promising talent.

“Overall, as a team, [we had] a very positive performance. I was very impressed, especially by a lot of the newcomers and underclassmen. The [first-year]  women crushed it.… I think there’s a very positive energy mindset, and I feel especially motivated moving forward,” Becker said.

The team’s excitement around returning home to compete was undoubtedly a factor in its success.

“[The facilitation of practices and meets] is so much more improved now. Access to our course loop … [is] a huge part of our training cycles.… We do a lot of our workouts on our course, [and] we would do cooldowns on our course. It was a really great resource to have, so it was a little bit tough to not have it,” Jones said.

Getting the course race-ready was more labor intensive this year because of the hiatus, but Raphelson spoke positively of the final product.

“It took a little more work to get the course ready after two years of not hosting, but the Bowdoin grounds crew was amazing. The track coaches were super helpful. I certainly put in some time getting it ready, but I would say overall, all the visiting teams and coaches were really happy with the course, and so that feels good to host a quality experience for them,” Raphelson said.

Due to the Pickard Field renovations, some slight adjustments were made to the previous course, although the backbone of the original course remains. The route is now designed to allow for a longer stretch of visibility for spectators.

The coaching staff and team alike are thrilled to host NESCAC Championships on November 2 and hope to maintain a home course advantage and Bowdoin-dominated audience at such a big meet.

“We have this attitude on the team that if we focus on the process, then the outcome goals will just follow suit. And it’s very exciting because we’re hosting NESCACs this year, so I think it’ll be a great culminating moment for the team to get to host the championship meet,” Becker said.

Raphelson added that he wants the team to familiarize itself with the new course in preparation for NESCACs.

“The team is just salivating over the idea of hosting NESCACs.… So we certainly want to be very familiar with our course by the time we get to that point with half the team never having even seen it before [Saturday] and the returners getting used to a new course. Saturday was valuable for that, and we’ll certainly spend time working out on it in the future,” Raphelson said.

The cross country team will travel to Auburn for their next meet on September 21 hosted by Bates College at Roy’s All Steak Hamburgers and Golf Center.