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BY MIKE UNGER

The stopwatch never lies, and on Sept. 2 it told the AU cross country team that 2005 could be a special season.

Early this month, the AU men’s and women’s cross country teams kicked off their seasons at the Mount Saint Mary’s Duels in Emmitsburg, Md. In what coach Matt Centrowitz hopes is an indication of bigger things to come, all his returning runners improved their times from the same meet a year ago. The teams appear to be on the right track.

“That’s outstanding, very positive,” Centrowitz said. “We lost a couple women to graduation. We had two transfers, so we lost some experience. But the outlook is very, very positive. [The first meet] was a great sign.”

Centrowitz’s male runners followed up their impressive opening performance by placing second at the Georgetown Invitational on Saturday. Junior Conor Lanz was the top Eagle finisher, in fourth place.

The women’s team is anchored by two-time All-American Keira Carlstrom. The senior from Oakton, Va., earned Patriot League Female Runner of the Week honors by winning the Mount Saint Mary’s race, leading the AU women to a sweep of five schools. Despite her impressive career accomplishments, Carlstrom is not content with maintaining her current level of excellence. She’s focused on constant personal improvement while embracing a leadership role on this year’s team.

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“Being a senior, I know a lot of freshman are looking to me for guidance,” she said. “Everyone did what they were supposed to do over the summer. Our chemistry has been very, very good this year. We have a lot of fun.”

Centrowitz is excited about newcomer Meghan Mason, a freshman from State College, Pa., but he knows his team will only go as far as the legs of Carlstrom and senior Zaia Wharton take it.

“Keira and Zaia are committed to making sure the team wins the [Patriot League] championship,” he said. “I think they’re a lot harder on themselves than I’m going to be on them. They’ve been awesome leaders for our team; they work hard, so whatever they do is fine with me.”

The men’s team is led by junior Brendan Fennell, sophomore Steve Hallinan, and junior Conor Lanz. In Emmitsburg, sophomore Kris Cruz was the top Eagle finisher, in sixth place. At that meet, AU defeated George Washington, Loyola, and Morgan State, but lost to Mount Saint Mary’s and UMBC.

Freshman Kevin Tschirhart, from Northport, N.Y., should bring added punch to team. His high school time in the two-mile was the fastest ever for a runner entering AU.

“His credentials are the best we’ve had coming in,” Centrowitz said. “That’s awesome talent coming in. He’s very healthy right now, he’s taken to our training very well.”

Avoiding injury is of paramount importance if the runners are to accomplish their goals.

“As a team, we need to stay healthy,” Fennell said. “That’s a main point in any sport. If you lose guys for two, three weeks, it’s a big deal, especially in running. You can’t even miss two or three days.

“We want to keep things similar to last year, we want a championship season,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll make it to nationals and take another step in our program and do well there. I think last year we were so fired up after making nationals we lost sight of what we were doing there. We were just happy to be there. This year, it’s a different mind-set. We don’t want to just make it to nationals, we want to do well there.”