Cross Country Heads To Garden State For Princeton Invitational

Oct. 17, 2014

QUEENS, N.Y. - In its final tune-up before the BIG EAST Championship on Oct. 31, the St. John's cross country team will travel to familiar track-season destination Princeton, N.J., on Saturday to take part in the Princeton Invitational. The Red Storm is coming off a positive showing at last week's Metropolitan Championships, notching a pair of top-10 individual finishes while placing seventh out of 12 teams to improve by one place from last season.

"We are looking forward to competing against some of the premier programs in the East at Princeton," said St. John's head coach Jim Hurt. "We plan on building off of our quality performances at last week's Metropolitan Championships and gaining some big meet experience going into the BIG EAST Championship at the end of October."

Despite the trip to Princeton being a familiar one for the Red Storm during outdoor track & field season, the St. John's women's cross country team has never previously competed there. Saturday's race will also serve as the Red Storm's last dress rehearsal before the 2014 BIG EAST Cross Country Championship staged in Indianapolis, Ind., with more than 50 collegiate teams and 1,300 student-athletes expected to compete in four races, including squads from Bucknell, Cornell, Fordham, Harvard, Hofstra, Iona, Maryland, Rutgers, Villanova and Virginia Tech.

The meet will commence at 10:30 a.m. with the Women's 6K Open Race, followed by the Women's 6K Championship Race at 11:15 a.m. featuring St. John's. The Men's 6K Championship Race is schedule for noon and will be followed by the Men's 8K Open Race at 12:45 p.m.

Having already made a significant impact in her first campaign with the Red Storm, freshman Izzi Batt-Doyle heads to Princeton with a pair of top-10 individual finishes to her name this season. Batt-Doyle, a native of Adelaide, Australia, was the winner at the season-opening SJU-Hofstra Fall XC Festival in a 5K time of 18:23.5 before placing seventh overall at last week's Metropolitan Championships. Also enjoying a strong start to the season is junior Stephanie Van Pelt, who enters the weekend having run the team's fastest 6K split this season with a run of 23:32.3 in a 33rd-place finish at the Annual Br. John "Paddy" Doyle/Iona College Meet of Champions.

Behind the Red Storm's front-running duo, the junior trio of Veronica Thompson, Michelle Van Pelt and Kerri Butler are all coming off encouraging efforts at the Metropolitan Championships.

To keep up to date on all team news this season, follow on Twitter @StJohnsXCTF and by using the hashtag #SJUXC. To be added to the St. John's women's cross country fans e-mail list, send a message to Edouard.Boulat13@stjohns.edu with the subject: "St. John's women's XC e-mail."

Cross Country Heads To Garden State For Princeton Invitational

Players Mentioned

Izzi Batt-Doyle

Kerri Butler

Michelle Pelt

Stephanie Pelt

Veronica Thompson

St. John's University Athletics