Top-half finish for men’s and women’s XC at Battle in Beantown
Last Friday, Kayley DeLay ’22 and Robert Miranda ’22 finished third and ninth, respectively, in Franklin Park, Boston, at the Battle in Beantown.
Lukas Flippo, Senior Photographer
On Sept. 24, Yale men’s and women’s cross country competed at the Battle in Beantown in Boston, placing seventh and eighth out of 20 and 22 teams, respectively.
Ten runners from the men’s and women’s teams each competed in the men’s eight-kilometer race and the women’s five-kilometer race. Most notably, Robert Miranda ’22 from the men’s team placed ninth out of 174 runners, and Kayley DeLay ’22 from the women’s team placed third out of 195 runners.
“I thought we ran pretty tough, as it’s our second race after coming off an absence for a while,” men’s head coach Paul Harkins told the News. “We are still figuring out all our pieces, [but] one of the things we know is that we are very deep, which is good because we have some interchangeable parts. We were hoping for a top five finish, so we weren’t too far off that. I think on a day where everybody is healthy, we can be a top five team.”
In addition to Miranda, several other men’s runners also had great performances. Cade Brown ’23 bounced back from a recent knee injury to place third for Yale, and Leo Brewer ’25 scored for the Elis for the first time with a fifth-place finish.
On the women’s side, head coach Taryn Sheehan praised several of her athletes. Sheehan believed that Julia Dvorak ’24 had a much improved showing compared to her performance at the annual race between Harvard, Yale and Princeton. She was also impressed with the performance of Kylie Goldfarb ’25, believing that “it was great for her to see what [racing] is like at this level.”
For both teams, this race was a crucial preview of the NCAA Division I Cross Country Northeast Regional Championships, which will also be hosted at Franklin Park on Nov. 12.
“It was really important for them to get on that course and to get a good feeling for it,” Sheehan told the News. “Now we know what we need to work on and how to execute that better, and what tactics are going to come down to the line when we get to November.”
The Blue and White race next on Friday at the Paul Short Run hosted by Lehigh University.