Men's Cross Country Season Preview

The Generals received votes in the USTFCCCA National Coaches' Preseason Poll and regional recognition

8/31/2022 12:00:00 PM

LEXINGTON, Va. – The Washington and Lee Men's Cross Country team, receiving votes in the national poll and predicted fourth in the region, opens the 2022 season on Thursday afternoon.

Head Coach Brandon Spalding, heading into his tenth season leading the Generals, will have 18 men toeing the starting line in Blue and White. New faces on the squad include three first-year student-athletes and a graduate student.

USTFCCCA NATIONAL POLL

The Blue and White make an appearance in the 2022 USTFCCCA Preseason Coaches Poll, receiving votes nationally and are slated in the four-spot for the South Region.

Nationally, two-time defending champion Pomona-Pitzer is a near unanimous favorite to three-peat in Michigan this November. The Sagehens aim to become just the third program in meet history to win three consecutive national titles, joining North Central (Ill.) and UW-Oshkosh are the others.

Lynchburg, the 2022 ODAC title winners, were voted No. 11 with 243 points and atop the South Region Coaches' Rankings. No. 20 Emory, the defending regional champion, is picked No. 2 and both squads return their entire top-7 from last year.

Christopher Newport, The Generals and Berry round out the region's top-5.

The Captains round out the pre-season poll at No. 35 while Bridgewater cracks the region top-10 prediction thanks to its strong returning core.

National Poll | Regional Poll

In lieu of a conference pre-season poll, the ODAC Associate Commissioner, JJ Nekoloff, spoke with three coaches from around the league to examine the conference landscape for the upcoming season.

2022 ODAC Cross Country Roundtable

SCHEDULE PREVIEW

The Generals open up the 2022 slate this weekend, half of the team will compete at the Shenandoah Twilight Invitational in Winchester, home of this year's ODAC Championship course and on Friday, September 2, the rest of the squad will compete at the Virginia Tech Invitational. Both meets will start after 6 p.m. and provide live stats.

The harriers will preview the Regional Championship course at Christopher Newport on September 16 followed by a second trip to Winchester on September 24.

Two consecutive trips up north, the Mike Woods Invitational and Inter-Regional Border Battle highlight the regular-season. At both meets, the Generals will go toe-to-toe against several nationally ranked teams and be able to gauge how W&L matches up for the post-season meets.

The ODAC Championship is October 29 at the Kernstown Battlefield, the South Regional in Newport News, Va. will take place on November 12 and the NCAA Championship, on November 19, will take place in Lansing, Mich.

KEY RETURNERS

Washington and Lee returns two USTFCCCA All-Region runners in junior Hayden Roberts (Lutherville, Md./Loyola Blakefield) and sophomore captains Josh Fingerhut (Havertown, Pa./Haverford Township). Classmate Jackson Jacobs (Brdigeport, W.Va./Bridgeport) rounded out the scoring for Washington and Lee at the Regional Championship in Spartanburg, S.C., last fall.

Roberts was the 22nd finisher and Fingerhut was No. 29 to claim their first All-Region accolades to help the Generals finish fifth place out of 23 schools.

The runner-ups in the ODAC Championship Meet, Fingerhut and Jacobs earned All-ODAC laurels with former earned Rookie of the Meet accolades, he crossed the finish line third in a field of 90 runners on the 8k course at Bridgewater. Since switching to the current conference accolades format in 2017, Fingerhut is the first General to earn Rookie of the Meet in program history, an award given to the top-finishing runner at the conference meet in the first season of competing in cross country.

Connor Verrett (Cockeysville, Md./ Loyola Blakefield) and Kyle Clarke (Sykesville, Md./ Loyola Blakefield), 2019 All-ODAC honorees, look to return to the top of the ODAC, while Chris Ruiz (Highland Lakes, N.J./ Vernon Township), MaxThomas (Winston-Salem, N.C./ Mount Tabor), Henry Haden (Atlanta, Ga./ The Lovette School) and Jake Symonds (Emerald Hills, Calif./ Crystal Springs Uplands) are expected to make a run at the top-7 for W&L and provide a lot of tight depth to bump the competition further down the finishers list.

Newcomers Charles Scharf (Elizabethtown, Pa./ Elizabethtown Area) and Colin Verrett (Cockeysville, Md./ Loyola Blakefield) will make an immediate impact. Scharf, a L1 law student, competed at Dickinson College during his undergraduate studies, he was named all-region and a national qualifier for the Red Devils. Verrett, Connor's younger brother, is no stranger to the Washington and Lee cross country program and the Generals' expectations.

MEET THE CAPTAINS

Josh Fingerhut
Hayden Roberts
Connor Verrett
Tim Warren

The 2021 ODAC Rookie of the Meet enters into his sophomore campaign with a more formal leadership role, serving as a team captain.

After being named All-ODAC and All-Region in his first campaign, Fingerhut will look to build off his success on the course.

Off the course, Fingerhut is an Economics and Environmental Studies double major who is serving as the Financial Controller for Mock Convention and was elected as the Incoming Executive Director for the Williams Investment Society beginning in winter term.

A member of Washington and Lee Hillel, Josh spent his summer working as an equity research analyst.

Hayden Roberts, a junior for the Blue and White is an Economics and Geology double major and Keelty Scholar.

On the course he is an All-Region athlete after finishing the 8K in 26:24.30 and took 22nd place for the south region.

This summer, Hayden spent his time in Alaska, researching and interpreting seismic data on the North Slope with Washington and Lee faculty.

In the classroom, Roberts is an Academic All-ODAC, W&L Scholar Athlete and USTFCCCA academic honoree.

Senior Connor Verrett is one of the most experienced runners on Spalding's roster. The captain was named ODAC Rookie of the Year in 2019 and named Second Team All-ODAC at No. 11 at the championships.

The economics major is a member of the E-Sports Club, a University Ambassador and involved in Mock Convention.

In his free time, Connor likes to disc jockey and spend his summer working as an investment banking analyst.

Tim Warren, a senior captain, had his best finish at the ODAC Cross Country Championships in 2019 with a 22nd place finish, running 26:30.1.

The economics and mathematics double major spent his summer as a equity intern at Citadel.

The Johnson Scholar also serves as the Tech Head for the Williams Investment Society.

We have a very complete team heading into the fall. I expect us to have a strong presence up front and we will rely heavily on our depth as we progress through the season.

Head Coach Brandon Spalding

Washington and Lee University

Schedule

Events