Women try to repeat, men to regain title

By Kevin Scheitrum

It’s always this time of the year, when Boston and the sun decide it would be better that they don’t see each other anymore, that the Boston University Cross Country teams get hot, and start giving most America East teams a snowball’s chance in hell of beating them.

The Terriers travel to Albany, N.Y. on Saturday to run in the America East Championships. Both teams look to grow their dynasty in the Empire State, as the women run for their eighth-straight conference title and the men look to regain their place as the perennial America East top dogs, after finishing in second place the last two years behind the University of New Hampshire.

Senior Jochen Dieckfoss looks to capture his fourth straight America East title, while fifth-year senior Jordan Jones and junior Dan Koval continue to excel against the odds they’ve faced their whole careers — Jones a walk-on, and Koval plagued by injuries.

“Jochen is the class of the conference,” said BU coach Bruce Lehane. “And he has been the whole time he’s been here. Jordan has been a huge improvement project through the years. Dan Koval has been steadier this year. I don’t think he’s functioning at 100 percent, but he’s at a greater percentage than he has been.”

Nevertheless, Lehane said the “magnificent three” will not be the turning point of the championships. Rather, the race will be decided by the next two runners, in what he expects to be a “fairly close meet with UNH.”

Fifth-year senior Carl Kinney and sophomore Mike Fisher need to be the electric shock collars for the Terriers. Lucky for Lehane, the men appear ready for the task at hand.

“Carl just fell from the sky,” Lehane said. “He was a gift at our door. Mike Fisher, just through hard work, made himself competitive. He really has shown the best degree of improvement this year.”

The women will again rely on their youth, as they have all season, to defend their championship streak, which started roughly around the time some as the women dropped their Barbies for New Balances. They will face their toughest competition from New Hampshire and Albany, respectively, according to Lehane.

Sophomore captain Jess Iannacci and freshmen Marisa Ryan and Abby Sadowski have led the Terriers all season long, and look to continue to do so on Saturday, along with pacing the rest of their team to victory. Iannacci counts on it.

“The season, up to this point, has been building up to America East,” Iannacci said. “Not that we don’t care, but America East is the first thing that matters to us ... Now we just have to get real psyched up, and have to tell the freshmen how important America East is.”

Lehane fully expects his team to continue their improvement, as both teams have taken a Gillette Mach III to their times, shaving around half a minute in all, the men hacking away a minute, on average.

And he doesn’t see the psyching-up to be a real problem. In fact, he expects his team to be seeing red as they prepare for the weekend. And pinstripes.

“If we take the meet, we feel we’ve had a successful season,” he said. “If not, we feel like we didn’t get the job done. We’d have the Red Sox feeling again.”

The last times the teams raced, on Oct. 10, Pedro Martinez was a day away from trying to take out the diamond stud in Yankee rightfielder Karim Garcia’s right ear with a 94 mph fastball, and the Sox-Yankees series was tied at 1-1. So, with three weeks behind them, the Terriers expect to benefit from 100-mile weeks from the men and 50-60 mile weeks for the women, especially for a select few runners.

“Dina Mijuskovic ran really strong last year, but this year she got off to a slow start,” Lehane said. “But she’s been working real hard ... Now we see it’s turned around, and she’s started to come on. It’s a big development for us ... Julie Henztman’s also entering the fray. She’s a tough runner. Those two kids have come on in the past 10-14 days.”

The long period off has also bred excitement for the team, Iannacci said. Aside from the runners, Iannacci said Lehane will break out his figurative Halloween costume for the meet, held the day after BU will be filled with people stumbling and yelling for entirely different reasons.

“Bruce doesn’t get excited about anything until America East,” she said. “And then he goes nuts. It’s so funny. Last year, I remember his cheering and yelling. I was like, ‘Whoa,’ because I wasn’t used to his voice not being a monotone.”

Lehane admitted he does tend to be a bit more vocal during the championships, but said he understands that letting emotions get too wild is about as effective as a group of 25 freshmen trying to get into a party.

“I probably do get a little more jacked up out there,” he said. “The nature of our sport is conservative ... in football, you get in a frenzy for each game. In our sport, you have to contain yourself, because it’s too easy to spend yourself before you get there.

“Often times, it happens to the team that’s the favorite,” Lehane continued. “Last year, one team figured they had it, and were going through the motions. We turned around and beat them ... So, as a coach, there are critical moments that sometimes you can help your runner. But you can’t do it too often, or else they’ll turn off to you.”

But, now, Lehane and the team know, it’s time to turn it on.