The University of Maine women’s and men’s cross country teams both started their seasons with upset wins over Army on Friday.
The Black Bears men upstaged the Black Knights by a perfect score of 15-45 and the women weren’t far behind with an 18-40 win of their own.
In college cross country, each of a team’s top five runners earns points based on the place they finish. The team with the lowest total wins. Fifteen is the lowest, and best, score a team can get.
“I definitely think this is an amazing test of where we are,” UMaine cross country coach Adam Ward told the Bangor Daily News on Friday. “I mean, it’s a huge boost of confidence for both the men and the women.”
The Army men’s team entered the season ranked 10th in the northeast region and the UMaine men were left out of the region’s top 15 to start the year.
The Army women’s team is ranked 8th in the region and UMaine is currently 14th.
While Ward doesn’t put too much stock in rankings, preseason or otherwise, he thought his men’s team may have come into Friday with something to prove after finishing in the top 15 the last two seasons.
“And so I think they kind of came in with maybe a little chip on their shoulder a little bit,” and were like, ‘Alright, we don’t give a flip about the rankings, but we do want to show folks that, hey, we’re definitely a team to be reckoned with,’” Ward said.
Ward wasn’t prepared to read too much into Friday’s performance, given that both UMaine and Army held some of their best runners out of the meet as they continue to ease into the season. But even without top runners like Helen Shearer and Charlie Collins in the mix on Friday, the Black Bears gave a good preview of what’s to come this season.
“We’re heading in the right direction,” Ward said, noting that the team still has some things to iron out. “I’m excited to see what the rest of the season holds.”