When Jessie Cardin crossed the finish line first, she had no idea she had set a piece of Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference history.
Cardin’s win in the 2017 MASCAC Women’s Cross-Country Championship last November gave her what’s called a four-peat—winning the league’s championship meet and Runner of the Year honors for the fourth straight year, a first for any man or woman in the 46-year history of the conference meets.
“I had no idea,” Cardin said at the time, noting that Athletic Director Dick Lenfest gave her a fist bump after she crossed the line and said, “Making history.” “He told me it was the first time it had ever been done. That’s pretty cool. I wanted to win it for a fourth straight year for personal reasons, but I didn’t know it hadn’t been done.”
Cardin outdistanced her closest competitor by 37 seconds in the 5,000-meter (3.1 mile) race. She has won the league title on four different courses, with her narrowest margin of victory of 22 seconds in her sophomore season. “Focus-wise, I visualized the race like it was the regionals,” she says. “I went out a little faster almost as an experiment, so that I know that I can do it if I need to when I am even fresher for the regionals.”
“The first word that comes to mind is ‘amazing,’” says Westfield State’s head coach Bill Devine. “She’s so determined and hard-working. She’s very focused and will do anything and everything to get better. On top of it all, she is the most humble person I have met in a long time.”
Cardin, an elementary education major, juggled a busy class schedule and student teaching along with the rigor of training for cross country. She was named the league’s runner of the week in November, the fifth time this season and the 21st time in her four-year career that she has earned that award.
The Westfield State women had a 13-year streak at the top of the conference. This fall, the Owls placed second behind Worcester State by a 35–41 score in what was expected to be a very close race. “I was really sad, but not devastated, that we didn’t win as a team,” says Cardin. “Being a senior and a captain, that would have been the cherry on top. But we win as a team, and we lose as a team.”
Cardin finished 15th at the NCAA New England Regional meet, and advanced to the NCAA Championship meet in Elsah, Illinois, where she finished 36th in the nation, earning All-America honors for the second time in her career.
