Since joining the Liberty League in 1999, the Vassar women’s cross country team had made 23 appearances in the conference championship tournament with its best finish, a runners-up showing, coming in 2011.
After placing four athletes in the top 10 of the 2023 Championships on Oct. 28, the team found itself on the brink of changing that.
With no other program having more than two athletes place in the top 10, the Brewers were in the lead. In this six-kilometer race, the team championship would go to whichever team had the lowest score, determined by the sum of each team’s five best finishers. If Vassar could have one more athlete finish among the top racers of the 100-person event, the championship would be theirs.
As Anna Kaigle ’25, Amaavi Miriyagalla ’24, Acadia Helfand ’27 and Noni Pattington ’25 worked their way into the top fourth of the race, it became clear that the team was going to make history.
Officially, Kaigle’s 19th place finish was the fifth score that clinched the program’s first conference championship. This finish, combined with first-year Haley Schoenegge’s third place finish, and first-years Norah Reade, Cayley Swaim and Anika Mueller-Hickler’s consecutive finishes in eighth, ninth and 10th place, respectively, earned Vassar an event-best 49 points.
In a team competition that can often seem individual, Vassar’s well-rounded roster and the rapport they have with each other was essential.
“I’ve never been on a team with this much camaraderie, and it is making the biggest difference in our, and my, success,” Schoenegge, the standout first-year who had the team’s best finish, told The Miscellany News. “We know that it’s not just us when we’re on the line or out on the course—it’s all of our teammates, and all of the people who have been members of the program throughout the years.”
St. Lawrence University finished second with 55 points and boasted the individual race winner, but did not exhibit the same depth of talent that the Brewers did. In fact, Vassar could have used any of its sixth, seventh or eighth place finishes instead of Kaigle’s fifth place finish and still have finished with fewer points than St. Lawrence. Additionally, all 14 Vassar athletes finished in the top 55.
“Winning Liberty Leagues was an incredible reflection of the hard work that every single person has been putting into our training and our team culture in and out of practice,” Pattington told The Miscellany News.
The victory marked a major milestone in what had already been a successful season for the team, with team victories at the Ron Stonitsch and Fred Pavlich Invitationals already on their resume.
Of course, when a team establishes itself as of championship caliber early in the season, postseason performances become all the more important. In the Liberty League Championship, the Brewers performed well when it mattered most—a tremendously rewarding experience for any athlete training with championship aspirations, or even expectations.
The team has also enjoyed extensive individual success. Schoenegge was named to the All-Liberty League First Team; Reade, Swaim and Mueller-Hicker were named to the second team; and Kaigle, Miriyagalla and Helfand were named honorable mentions.
A week after winning their first conference championship, the team displayed more of its talent by winning the ECAC Championship at the Hudson Valley Sportsdome.
In this event, the athletes that will not be competing in the NCAA Championships were given the opportunity to compete in a championship event.
Nora Goldberg-Courtney ’26 led the Brewers with a fourth overall finish, with Lily Shimpach ’26 and Clara Wiesler ’24 joining them in the top 10 with seventh and eighth place finishes, respectively. Jordan Norman ’24 and Addie Nyhan ’27’s consecutive finishes in 10th and 11th place were the final two scores counted in Vassar’s winning total of 40 points.
The team was closely contested by the University of Hartford, second place finishers with 44 points, but displayed dominance against the next two best finishing teams, Pratt Institute, who scored 86 points, and St. Joseph’s University-Long Island, who finished with 140 points.
Next weekend, the team will focus on the NCAA Mideast Regional Championship in Massachusetts, an event the team finished sixth in last season.
Regardless of how the team performs then, the Brewers still appear poised to be one of 32 teams that will be selected for the NCAA National Championships, which will be held on Nov. 18 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Currently, Vassar is ranked 19th in the country and third in the mideast region. A strong performance at the Mideast Championships could earn them an automatic bid. If not, they will hope to receive one of the 22 at-large bids available. If selected, it would be the team’s first appearance in the national tournament since 2019.