BU Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Heading to Patriot League Championships Friday
Terriers say they’re prepared as they go for conference titles
The Boston University women’s cross country team will run at the Patriot League championship race this Friday, October 31, at Lehigh University.
BU Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Heading to Patriot League Championships Friday
Terriers say they’re prepared as they go after conference titles
On the first day of preseason camp, the Boston University men’s and women’s cross country teams reviewed their goals for the fall season—at the top of the list: winning the Patriot League championships.
With this season’s championship meet set to begin Friday, there is a palpable buzz around both teams.
“What I’m really impressed with is that the buzz is an optimistic, confident one, not a nervous, anxious one, because they’ve prepared,” says cross country head coach John Molz. “When we set our goals at the beginning of the season, what we do is try and work every single day to make them realistic, and I think both teams know that they have put the work in.”
This year’s championships will be held at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. The women will compete in a 6-kilometer race starting at noon, followed by the men in an 8-kilometer run at 1 pm.
The Terriers competed at the Lehigh Paul Short Run October 3, so they’re familiar with the Bethlehem course. The men placed 18th out of 40 teams there, the women finished 26th.
It’s “a little bit of a faster course,” says Abby Waddington (CAS’27). This time around, only the 10 Patriot League teams will compete, so the course will be much less crowded, says Waddington, who fell at Lehigh earlier this month and wasn’t able to finish, in part because of the crowded course. Consequently, she has a rebound performance on her mind.
“To be back in the top 5 to 10 would be awesome,” she says. “But I also don’t want to put top-three out of my mind.”
After placing second the past two seasons to the United States Military Academy, the goal of the women’s team is to win the championship. The title is “well within our grasp,” Waddington says.
Pacing the women’s side are Waddington and Adrienne Buettner-Cable (CAS’27), who “is on fire,” Molz says. He also cites the women’s team’s depth, adding that any number of them could place in the top five.
On the men’s side, the Princeton Fall Classic on October 17—the final meet of the regular season—marked their best performance of the year, the coach notes. They enter the championships with confidence—and they want to win.
Head cross country coach John Molz (second from left), now in his second year at BU, coaching the men’s cross country team at the UMass Dartmouth Cross Country Invitational September 20.
“We have some really good momentum moving forward into the postseason,” Freddy Collins (ENG’26) says. “We want to win. We’ve been third a lot of times in a row.”
Collins and Parker Schneider (COM’26) have been the Terriers’ top two finishers in the final two races of the regular season. They are contenders to finish in the top five, and on their best day, to win the race, Molz says.
Much like the women, the men’s team is deep this season. Tucker Bowerfind (CAS’26), James American Horse (CAS’28), Dan Hruska (CAS’28), and Karsen Vesty (ENG’27) have all had great regular seasons and are entering the postseason at top form.
“They’re the best three, four, five, and six runners that any team has,” the coach says.
At a bare minimum, the men’s side should take second place, Collins says, noting that something would have to go wrong for the Terriers to place third. That’s the team’s mindset entering Friday’s race.
All the preparation that both the men and the women have put in—on their own during the summer, as a team in the preseason, and over the course of the regular season—leads up to the league championships. Their preparation for Friday has been similar to what they have been doing for months to train.
“It’s the same stuff we’ve been doing all season,” Collins says. “If we can treat it like a normal race, it’ll all work out. This is something we talk about for the entirety of the season, in the summer even. So there’s definitely some excitement in the air.”
The Women’s Cross Country and Men’s Cross Country Patriot League Championships are Friday, October 31, at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. The women’s 6K begins at noon, and the men’s 8K follows at 1 pm. Live stats and results will be available all day here; BU fans can find more information on goterriers.com and follow along on Twitter at @TerrierTFXC and @BUGameDay.