Bringing The Charm To The Farm

Sept. 4, 2007

By Carolyn Braff

CSTV.com

	Carolyn Braff Carolyn is an assistant editor and writer for CSTV.com. E-mail here!

        ---   Column Archive   --- SOFTBALL 01/24: Modeling The Right Role FOOTBALL 01/15: Getting Somewhere 01/07: The Home Team vs. The Road Warrior 01/01: Singing The Maize And Blues 12/27: Up-Downs For Texas 12/18: Lying In Wait 12/11: Warrior Green: The New Boise Blue 12/8: Best Of The Rest 12/4: A Winning Preparation 11/27: Easy Road To The Big Easy 11/20: Running The Backup and Crashing 11/13: Least Common Denominators 11/6: Throw The Ducks A Bone 10/30: Boise Is Back 10/23: They've Got Guts 10/16: Kansas Full of Cupcakes 10/9: Pay Attention To The Men Behind The Curtain 10/2: Not-Such-Surprises 9/25: Irish Inflation 9/18: The Star and The Slump 9/11: Four's No Crowd 9/4: Unmatched Matchups 8/22: No Peterson, No Problem For Oklahoma 8/22: Catch Him If You Can 8/21: Running A Reverse 8/20: Big 12 Conference Preview 8/8: Still No Cigar 8/8: Going and Coming 8/8: C-USA Conference Preview 6/17: Pennsylvania Wins Not-So-Big 33 LACROSSE 5/5: Tigers Limp Into Playoffs 4/7: Home, Sweet Home 3/3: Hoyas Hold On For Another Win 2/16: Accelerating Development 2/15: One More Chance For This Mid 2/12: Wildcats Favored For Three in a Row BASKETBALL 3/21: Winona State Still Streaking in Postseason 3/19: Cruising to Perfection 1/14: Penn Has The Tempo To a T 1/12: Columbia Thwarts The Three, Downs Princeton FENCING 3/25: A Rematch to Be Remembered 3/23: Columbia Hopes to Take Two CROSS COUNTRY 9/7: Luck Be A Lambie 9/4: Bringing Charm To The Farm 9/4: Breaking In 9/3: Room to Run GOLF 6/13: Looking The Part

As if Palo Alto didn't have enough charm, 17 young women are on the verge of giving the town a whole new level of pizzazz.

The two-time defending champion Stanford cross-country team is well aware that winning a third-straight national title is no easy task, but with eight of the team's top 10 runners returning and a deep field backing them up, there may soon be some extra charm on The Farm.

"What are the odds of repeating? I don't know," head coach Peter Tegen said, who has won a championship in each of his two years with the program. "We're going to have a very solid team and we're going to deal with rejuvenated and new opponents. We're going to prepare as well as we can, as we did in the past two years, and we'll just see how we compare in the end."

Stanford's biggest competition may not come from rejuvenated opponents, but rather matured opponents. Last year's No. 2 and 3 teams, Colorado and Michigan, respectively, each return six of their top seven runners, and fifth-place Arkansas returns its entire team. But it is Stanford, returning its own top three runners, that has been tabbed the pre-season favorite.

The Cardinal has won the national title three times in the last four years, relinquishing only in 2004, when top runner Arianna Lambie redshirted with a back injury. Lambie returned to the team in 2005 and led the Cardinal to back-to-back championships. One of the nation's best, Lambie has put her team in position to take home a third-straight title her senior year.

"She's been our front runner at all the meets and so she will be extremely important when it comes to the team's performance at any competition," Tegen said. "She has the ability to run with anyone in the country, and it's going to be depending on the day where in the end she will finish. She certainly is our most experienced and our top runner as far as we know right now."

Along with Lambie in the top spot, Stanford's Nos. 2 and 3 runners return from last season's championship team. Senior Teresa McWalters and junior Lindsay Flacks are both seasoned All-Americans, and Flacks has international experience, having competed at the World Junior Cross Country Championship in 2005. Junior Alicia Follmar and senior Lauren Centrowitz round out the returning members of Stanford's top seven.

A deep roster of underclassmen will have the opportunity to fill the vacant fourth and fifth spots, and Lambie has particularly high expectations for the team's five sophomores. Anne St. Geme leads that list by virtue of pedigree - her mother, Cecilia Hopp St. Geme, was an All-American and NCAA champion in track and cross country at Stanford and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2002.

Three incoming freshmen will help push intra-squad competition. Madeline Duhon, Alexandra Gits and Stephanie Marcy are all competitive recruits, and assistant coach David Vidal, captain of the 2005 men's team, stresses that spots on the national team are far from set in stone.

"Our eyes are wide open at this point to see what everybody does, but especially the incoming recruits," Vidal said. "I think they have a very good shot at being top competitors."

Still, it will be difficult for the freshmen to make an immediate impact.

 "We do not necessarily count on incoming freshmen to carry the team," Tegen said. "Usually that is done by upperclassmen. If we're fortunate enough to have a few freshmen who can help us out, that'd be wonderful."

Stanford's schedule is intentionally short, emphasizing quality over quantity.

"The earlier meets, there's not a whole lot riding on them for us," Vidal said. "They're more preparation. The real meets are the championship meets. We prefer that to racing every week and racing like crazy. We'll train and use key opportunities to try something out, but really focus on the bigger stuff."

"Everything we do will focus on both Pac-10 and national NCAA championships," Tegen said. "All the other meets are really nothing but a station towards that goal."

And there are very few stations along the line. The Cardinal generally opens the season with a smaller inner-state meet early in September before hosting the Stanford Invitational at the end of the month. As the team's flagship meet, the Invitational is an important opportunity for the team to test combinations of runners and try out new strategy, and is always a point of pride for the hosts. The mid-October pre-nationals meet is an opportunity to gauge the competition before returning the team's focus westward for the Pac-10 Championships in late October.

Regional qualifiers are held on Nov. 10 and the National Championship takes place Nov. 19, making for a quick, challenging season with a singular goal - the three-peat.

"Meet days are fewer and therefore bring higher pressure than in high school, but we are also better prepared for each meet," Lambie said. "We focus on a specific task for each race. The intensity is highest when teammates feel the need to earn a position on the team, so as powerful as that motivation is we try to make sure no one feels an entire season rests on one race. That said, come championship time, the pressure is part of the sport, and if you don't like it, you probably shouldn't do it."

Tegen is certain that Stanford's training regimen is distinct from every other team's style of preparation. He's not exactly sure how, but he knows it works.

"Every team practices and trains in a different fashion, and we do too," Tegen says. "I couldn't even tell you what the differences are compared to any other Pac-10 team, but I just know that we do it slightly differently and it's been working out well."

Although it cannot be articulated, Tegen's practice style has brought unprecedented success to Stanford. With continued hard work and a "pinch of good luck," come Nov. 19, these runners will be enjoying their third-time charm.