NEW YORK -- The Yale men's cross country team placed fifth on Friday at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships on a sunny fall morning at Van Cortlandt Park. Led home by junior Sean Kay in seventh place, the Bulldogs battled fiercely against their conference rivals over five grueling miles across the notoriously difficult Van Cortlandt Park course.
The first five runners across the line score points for each team, although all 12 racers can play a crucial role in the team standings by displacing other teams' scoring runners. After finishing seventh in this race last year with a team score of 156 points, the Bulldogs improved greatly as they lowered their score to 119 points to finish a close fifth in the team standings. Princeton, Harvard and Cornell were the top three teams on the day, while the Bulldogs just missed out on fourth after a battle with Dartmouth. Penn, Columbia and Brown rounded out the finishing order.
Kay, an economics major hailing from Melrose, Mass., stepped up for Yale on the biggest stage and delivered one of the best performances of his life to lead the Bulldogs home in seventh place -- an All-Ivy League position -- after jostling with the leaders through the entirety of the race. Athletes are awarded first team All-Ivy honors for placing in the top seven, and second team honors for placing eighth through 14th. Seventh is the highest individual placing for a Yale athlete at Heps since 2019. Even more impressively, Kay's time of 24:19 was the second-fastest clocking ever by a Yale athlete on this course, in which the runners must navigate unsteady footing, several challenging ascents and some terrifyingly steep, and fast, descents. The race culminates with a soul-crushing climb up cemetery hill, which crests a kilometer from the finish, before a frantic final push to the line.
Senior captain Cade Brown equaled his 2019 Heps placing as he followed Kay home in 22nd position in 25:03, 19 seconds faster than he ran three years ago. Brown has battled multiple injuries since then, but after an inspiring return to form this season he showed yet again Friday that he is in the form of his life and ready to end his Yale career on a high. First year Owen Karas had the best race of his season to come in close behind him eight seconds later in 27th. Yale's scoring contingent was rounded out by sophomores Leo Brewer and Varun Oberai, who finished strongly together down the deceptively long finishing straight in 32nd and 34th respectively. A large group of Bulldogs displayed impressive pack running as they finished in hot pursuit of the sophomore duo, with fellow sophomore Winslow Atkeson, first year Kenan Pala, juniors Stephen Moody and Martin Riddell placing 40th, 43rd, 44th and 45th respectively. First year Braden King and senior Richard Sturtevant rounded out the team on the day as they finished in 56th and 66th position.
Despite a clear improvement from last year's Heps race, the Bulldogs will still be hungry for more. Six of Yale's top seven athletes today will return next year, with plenty more talent on the sidelines ready to step in and contribute to another year of improved performances. As far as this year is concerned, though, the Bulldogs aren't done just yet. Two weeks from now the team will return to Van Cortlandt Park for the NCAA Northeast Regional Race on Nov. 11, and Yale will have ambitions of competing for the victory and a position at the NCAA Championships. Until then, they will go back to training, and back to the teamwork that has taken them to where they are today.
