By Justin Feil
Expectations are high this fall for Eowyn Deess and the Princeton High School girls’ cross country team.
It’s the junior’s third year on a deep, experienced, and accomplished Tiger team and each year those standards have gone up.
“I think the expectations are kind of higher, but a lot of those expectations I feel are what we put on ourselves,” said Deess. “The 10 of us, all of our runners have pretty high expectations for ourselves, but it’s important to also not push yourselves too hard or kind of lose ourselves in this cycle of, oh, if I don’t reach this insanely high expectation then we’re bad as a team or we’re not flowing together. It’s just important that we’re all still working together, we’re all working hard.”
PHS finished second in the Varsity B race at the Shore Coaches Invitational in Holmdel Park last Saturday, the squad’s biggest race in-state to date. Junior Grace Hegedus placed fourth in 19:25 over the 5,000-meter course while senior Kajol Karra ran 19:53 for eighth, junior Phoenix Roth placed 14th in 20:25, Deess ran 20:38 for 16th and freshman Caroline Kime finished out their scoring in 31st in 21:07. The Tigers had wanted to be even faster.
Ridgewood placed first in the team standings with a winning score of 74 as the Tigers totaled 70 in taking second.
“The race was less than ideal for some of us, myself included,” said Deess.“But I think that’s not really representative of what we’re hoping to do in future meets. And we’re excited for the Manhattan Invitational at Van Cortlandt Park this Saturday. We’re looking forward to seeing other competitive teams.”
It’s those sorts of standards that are driving the Tigers after coming off their first New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) Group 4 state title and with their top six finishers back from the squad that placed second to Union Catholic at the Meet of Champions (MOC).
“The new season and high expectations is a new spot for us,” said PHS head coach Jim Smirk. “We have often been the underdogs and as such played the role of spoiler. This season we are seeing teams specifically prepare and adjust their training and competition to be ready to face us. Overall we are performing better than we did last year, but I would say the girls are exploring performance with an eye on excellence in this new context. There have been new challenges that require new approaches from the team to solve. We are on our way developing our new identity with plenty of work to do still.”
Deess wanted to go even faster at Shore Coaches, but her mark was still 27 seconds better than the time she clocked last year at the meet.
“I think Shore Coaches last year for me also didn’t end up going like the way I had hoped,” said Deess. “But everyone’s putting a lot of pressure on themselves and sometimes performances that aren’t bad are perceived as bad by the people who run them. So we were working towards always working hard and always pushing, but not being unreasonable in our analyses of our issues.”
It’s a tricky balance between pushing themselves to improve, not being too satisfied in the midpoint of the season, yet not tearing their confidence down. PHS will have plenty of competition to drive them. They competed in the Bowdoin XC Classic in New York the weekend before (they were second there as well), and they’ll head back to New York for the Manhattan Invitational.
“Something important for us that we’re going to be thinking about for the upcoming races is trust in each other,” said Deess. “So I think we already have that but making that team aspect and team trust deeper and having togetherness during the races. A lot of times it’s easy to get looped into the individuality of racing but it’s also important to lean on your teammates and believe in them and support them while you’re racing.”
Deess has found cross country to be an important part of her high school experience. She ran races here and there for fun in elementary school, and grew increasingly interested through middle school, though sixth grade was canceled by COVID-19, and in seventh grade she was limited by a concussion. But in eighth grade, her running started to take off and she’s been able to contribute to the Tiger varsity since her freshman year. Last year, she was Princeton’s third finisher at the MOC.
“Eowyn has gone from a quiet but positive contributor her freshman year to a core component in our successful campaign last year,” said Smirk. “Her continued growth as a runner with a focus on consistency has been a big part of our continued improvement. Eowyn brings more than just fast times to the team. She also has a wonderful perspective on the importance of having team members that care deeply about each other and support each other during practice meets and beyond.”
Deess, whose younger brother Aleric is a sophomore on the PHS boys’ team, has experience from her first two years of high school running. Each season has helped her to advance as an athlete.
“Especially freshman year, we were starting to find ourselves as a team and then my sophomore year, we really were able to step into that role and find our identity as a team that we were able to showcase at a lot of those meets,” said Deess. “And I think this season, it’s important for us not to be discouraged by having a not as ideal race as we had hoped for (Saturday). But we’re looking forward to, when we have all of our runners healthy and we stay healthy throughout the season, we’re looking forward to seeing how competitive we are in meets after this and the postseason.”
The Holmdel course is one that the Tigers are hoping to see again at the end of the year. It’s the site used for both the Group meets and the Meet of Champions. This was Deess’ first race on the course this year.
“Holmdel is a very unique course because it has so many different types of terrain,” said Deess. “There are the rolling hills, there’s ‘The Bowl,’ there’s gravel, but also dirt paths, and I think it’s very varied. So it’s pretty interesting to race. And it’s also helpful to kind of split the race up in your head instead of it all being like the same kind of scene or environment. Everything looks different when you’re racing it.”
She has teammates to help pull and push her along. The Tigers’ top five finishers Saturday were all within two minutes of each other. Deess has been working through some nagging injuries, and is hopeful that she’ll be 100 percent by the postseason.
“Generally what I’m looking for, kind of similar to last year, is keeping my eyes on Phoenix Ross but I haven’t quite gotten there yet,” said Deess. “But also Sevanne Knoch, so being with her and Phoenix in that kind of area, we’ll see where it goes from there. I’m just trying to recover from everything and calm down a little bit so I can calmly race to the best of my ability.”
Deess factors heavily into helping the Tigers reach their lofty goals this year. She is part of an experienced core that is driving themselves to push toward the top of the state. The Shore Coaches meet was just the latest chance to test themselves and measure progress.
“The focus for the rest of the month is to get healthy and continue on building our team identity,” said Smirk. “We have a bunch of high quality competition coming our way and we are excited for the opportunities.”