BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The school year at Lehigh has officially begun, which means that cross country season is right around the corner.
The Lehigh men’s cross country team opens their 2023 campaign at home, a course that the team will run at three separate times this season. The Mountain Hawks are set to host the Lehigh Invitational this Friday to open the year, followed by the annual Paul Short Run on September 30 and the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional, which the team last hosted in 2021. Head coach Todd Etters, now entering his 16th season at the helm of the program, believes that there both pros and cons to hosting these events.
“We’re pretty lucky to have the course that we have. It’s great for racing, big or small, but it’s also great for training,” said Etters. “We know it really well, but sometimes that can be a detriment. Knowing the course is a great advantage, but it’s not really even half the battle when it comes to competing well. We have to prepared a little bit better than we have in the past to be able to compete hard on our course when the meets matter the most.”
Part of competing your best in the biggest moments comes with practice and repetition, which the Mountain Hawks will get plenty of this year. In addition to the Lehigh Invitational on Friday, Lehigh will also compete at the Harry Lang Invitational hosted by Colgate on Saturday. Not only will the Mountain Hawks run on their own course again this season, they will also travel back to Colgate for the Patriot League Championship in November. Etters hopes to use this opening weekend as an opportunity not only to compete, but also to use as preparation for more notable races later in the season.
“We’ll compete everyone at both meets. We’re going to compete hard and treat it like a real race on Friday,” said Etters. “The real goal with going up to Colgate honestly is to see the course. We have a four-year rotation for the Patriot League meet, so nobody on our team has competed on the Colgate course. We definitely need to go up and see it.”
In addition to getting comfortable with the courses, this weekend’s races will be the first time this season that Etters will get to see and evaluate his runners.
“For me, this is going to be a great opportunity to see how well people compete,” said Etters. “We’ve been doing a great job of that in practice, really emphasizing packs. We definitely have some guys that are going to be capable of running up front this year. I want to see guys communicating with each other and really just responding to whatever the competition throws at us.”
The Mountain Hawks return 12 runners from the 2022 season this year, including Patriot League 5k champion Kevin Harvey. Coming off of a successful campaign a year ago, Etters knows that Harvey will have a bigger target on his back this season.
“[Kevin] is not a hidden commodity in the Patriot League anymore. He’s known and people will expect him to be able to compete at a high level, including us and himself,” said Etters. “My high school coach had a great quote, ‘If you make your bed, you sleep in it.’ Kevin is now a champion and he’s going to be expected to perform as such.”
In addition, Etters believes that junior Aidan Lynch will provide strong leadership for his team this year.
“Aidan is a pretty versatile athlete when it comes to track. He ranges from the 800 all the way up, and in cross country he shows that he’s got a lot of strength,” said Etters. “I’m looking at Aidan as a strong leader as well, I think he’s going to be the glue that keeps our packs together.”
Lehigh’s sophomore class also boasts some impressive athletes who are looking to improve upon a successful first season in the program.
“Typically, in our training program we see sophomores make the biggest jump,” said Etters. “We had three of them last year as first-years compete at the regional meet, which is our top seven competing. I wouldn’t be surprised if we have some other first-years this year that wind up in our top seven really when it counts at the end of the championship segment.”
Speaking of those first-years, Lehigh welcomes six new faces to the program in 2023. While adjusting to running at the collegiate level can be difficult, Etters has been very pleased with his new runners’ transition from high school to Division I cross country.
“I like what I see so far. We have some guys that are not intimidated and are willing to get out there and grind a little bit with some of our top guys and returners, and I think that’s good because it gives them a taste,” said Etters. “I want to see [our first-years] go out [this weekend], not be reckless, but more curious about how good they can be and the only way to figure that out is to take some chances.”
Men’s cross country will run the Lehigh Invitational 6k on Friday at 6:15 p.m. at the conclusion of the women’s race beforehand. They will then travel up to Hamilton, N.Y. to run in Colgate’s Harry Lang Invitational on Saturday with an expected start time of 11:45 a.m.