One such consult is John Reagan '85 of Dallas. Over ten years ago, he created the sports pages on the website www.hoyasaxa.com and originated virtually all of its resident content. The site is a wonderful storehouse of information on Georgetown basketball and football. John also commandeers an army of web bots that, on a daily basis, vacuum up all the latest bits and bytes in cyberspace related to Georgetown sports which John then spoon feeds to Hoya fans worldwide. The website also hosts a several message boards including one on men's basketball, one on football, and one on "other sports."

When it comes to football and basketball, I can usually rely on hoyasaxa.com. When I need more on those sports, I often seek out my original gurus: Rory Quirk '65 of Washington, DC or Dick Williams '65 of Atlanta. But when it comes to everything else, I have to scramble among multiple sources.

As the weather seems to have shifted sharply towards winter, and fall sports have transitioned to winter sports, this week is a good time to pause and applaud the accomplishments of the men's and women's cross country teams. They performed so well that not just selected individuals, but rather the entire men's team and the entire women's team will compete for the national title next Monday in Terre Haute, Indiana. Running neophyte that I am, I naturally look to Nevada Hoya to give me some insight. He does not fail. He posted the following message about our national championship prospects earlier this week after our successful outing in the NCAA regionals:

Nevada Hoya
Diamond Hoya
Posts: 4,597
Location: Las Vegas

Re: NCAA Mid Atlantic Regional XC Race

« Reply #18 on Nov 17, 2008, 4:02pm » The men are looking for a top 10 finish. I don't think they have much of a chance for a title, because Oregon and Okie State are too strong. The team we may match up against is the Univ of Portland (the women's soccer power). They have two very strong guys, a third guy, who is pretty good and the other four hoping to do some low scoring. We have one guy, who might finish in the top 10 individually. Bumbi has won all his races this year, so he may not have been tested; here comes the test. The supporting group - Miller, Taye, Krisch, Banks, Scheid, and Grimes - are dependable and run well in a pack. If they can run in a pack near the chase pack, we will do well. Taye has the ability to pop a big one, and Miller has been very consistent this year. I think it comes down to how Krisch, Banks, and Scheid do.

Last year we should have been in the top 10, probably around 7th, but two of our runners had medical problems on the course, and Taye was going to drop out, when it was figured out that he was the 5th man. So he finished the race in last place. We still finished 13th. He had been running about 100th in the race; if he had finished in that place, I think 7th was ours. So I am predicting anywhere from 5th to 13th.

The women will have a more difficult time. They don't have the dominant runner this year in Melissa Grelli, who will be running for Oregon in their attempt to derail Washington. Liz Maloy has been leading the team all year, and we have two great freshmen. Natasha LaBeaud has been running well, so she should help us. The fifth runner will be the difference. For the women a finish from 11th to 20th will be in order. They want to make up for their poor showing last year in 28th (even with Melissa finishing 9th).

Hoya, Hoya Saxa!

Hoya, Hoya Georgetown!

Hoya Betowski! Betowski! Betowski!