Brown Cross Country Season Preview
9/2/2021
Distance Coach Hannah Chappell-Dick on the Upcoming 2021 Season
High energy and anticipation are in the air as the Brown men’s and women’s cross country teams are set to compete for the first time since 2019 on Friday afternoon when they will compete at the Suffolk Short Course Classic, hosted by Suffolk University at Franklin Park in Boston.
“I think the energy is really high right now,” said assistant distance coach Hannah Chappell-Dick. “The teams are really excited because they’ve had two full years since they were last able to race cross country so we’re really looking to solidify the team identity, and move towards a position where we can be really competitive in the Ivy League. We’re excited to get back out there and get the team some race experience and give them a chance to really compete again. The team morale is really high and everyone is really motivated and excited.”
Key Returners
The women’s team returns several upperclassmen who earned race time as underclassmen in 2019. Seniors Emily Kompelien and Katherine Dokholyan will look to help lead Brown’s pack, but the team also figures to earn points from its large, 10-member sophomore class.
“On the women’s side, we have a particularly large sophomore class that we’re really excited about, and we’re definitely going to see our underclassmen impact the scoring this season,” Chappell-Dick said. “It’s really exciting to see the level of camaraderie between all the classes, especially since they’ve been a little bit separated the past year.”
On the men’s side, senior Griffin McCauley and graduate student Ben McCoy return for the Bears. McCauley set new personal records in the 8K, 10K and 5-mile distances during the 2019 season. McCoy set PRs in each of his final two races in 2019 with a time of 26:37.7 (five miles) in the Ivy League Championships and a 10K time of 30:25.4 at the NCAA Northeast Regionals. Sophomore Evan Sherman is one of the team’s newcomers the coaching staff is hopeful will impact the scoring as well this season.
“We talked as a team about really taking advantage of every opportunity that we have because we can’t take anything for granted,” Chappell-Dick said. “I really think this last year has increased the resilience and gratitude on the team because they realize that you need to take advantage of the everything that you’re given.”
The sophomore classes from both teams had the opportunity to train on campus this summer, an option that wasn’t available to them the previous summer. This presented the student-athletes with more one-on-one attention, something the coaches believe has put the group in a much better spot entering this season.
“We’re really relying on the leadership of the seniors to help the freshman and sophomore classes get integrated, since they haven’t had a normal collegiate cross country season yet,” Chappell-Dick said. “Both the men’s and women’s sides have done a great job with that.”
