WXC Ready for BIG EAST Championship
11/1/2013 12:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country
Nov. 1, 2013
SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. - Consistency and depth - two concepts which have prevailed over the course of the 2013 season for the Seton Hall women's cross country team which will vie for the right to be called champions at tomorrow's BIG EAST Championship meet at Wayne E. Dannehl National Cross Country Course in Somers, Wisconsin.
The SHU women have proven to be a squad with a number of team members who can step up on any given day as 10 different Pirates have contributed scoring times this season. Collectively they have excelled as Seton Hall has recorded three second-place team finishes this season and twice finished within 12 points of victory.
The nine Pirates that have been selected to represent The Hall are led by the duo of Nyala Eddings (Chicago, Ill.) and Mary Migton (Ledgewood, N.J.) that has occupied the top-two spots for the squad in all six meets this season.
A senior and two-time BIG EAST scorer, Eddings had been the team's top performer in every race to this point in the season. In the past two seasons, she has collected a pair of top-three team finishes at the conference meet and is the top returning finisher after having ranked second on the squad as a junior. More than comfortable at the 6K distance the Pirates will be faced with tomorrow, Eddings owns the fastest 6,000-meter time on the team this year (23:08.04, Leopard Invitational).
Migton has also scored twice on the championship stage, highlighted by her team-leading 65th place finish as a freshman in 2011. Her time that day was a 22:32.9 which ranks as the fastest 6K time recorded by any Pirate currently on the roster. As mentioned, Migton has finished second to Eddings in the team rankings six times and has also collected five top-30 overall finishes.
Freshman Desyre Blackburn (Aloha, Ore.) figures to factor greatly in the team's push to make a name for itself among its conference peers as she has placed third on the team in every meet of her first collegiate season. Blackburn has three top-15 performances to her credit and last time out; she turned in a season-best 6K time of 24:13.82.
Along with Eddings and Migton, senior Kristen May (Shrewsbury, Mass.) has captained the squad during the year and on Saturday; she will be looking to score at the BIG EAST meet for a second-straight season. She ranked fifth on the squad at the 2012 Championship and in her third year as a member of the program, she has taken significant steps forward as an individual runner, scoring three times in five appearances.
All three captains recently gave an inside look at the squad as it readied for its trip to the conference championship in this video interview
Sophomore Amanda Quaglia (Reading, Pa.) has been limited to three meets this season but is one of four Pirates returning to the BIG EAST meet after having scored a season ago. Quaglia finished fourth on the team as a freshman and has finished among the team's top-five in 10-of-12 career appearances, including all nine last year.
Also competing for The Hall on Saturday will be a trio of three more sophomores in Amanda Catherall (Farmingdale, N.Y.), Bri Miller (Bayonne, N.J.) and Samantha Young (Upper Black Eddy, Pa.) that all picked up their first career scoring efforts over the course of this season.
Catherall has scored in two of the last three meets for SHU, finishing fifth on the team at the Cappy Anderson Invitational and the Metropolitan Championships while Young is coming off a fifth-place team finish at the Leopard Invitational.
Miller is in her first season running for Seton Hall and through five appearances, has finished fourth on the team three times. Last time out, she posted a 6K time of 25:29.86 that is fourth-best on the team this season.
Making her first BIG EAST Championship appearance will be freshman Tiffany Callanan (Toms River, N.J.) who has been steady throughout her debut campaign. She has ranked among the team's top-nine finishers in all five races in which she competed; twice placing sixth among all Pirates, most recently at the Metropolitan Championships.
The Pirates will be taking on a field that includes some of the top teams in the nation as Georgetown (#3), Providence (#4) and Butler (#7) all rank among the top-eight in the most recent USTFCCCA poll.
A Villanova team that features reigning BIG EAST champion Emily Lipari also received votes. The Wildcats' run of four-consecutive team championships was ended by the Hoyas in 2012 and the Pirates will be among the teams looking to return the favor to Georgetown on Saturday.
Start-time is slated for approximately 11:50 a.m. central on the women's side.
