Collegiate Cross Country Conference Championships, Pt I

Nov. 01 Articles, Racing no comments

With the conclusion of all the collegiate cross country conference championships throughout the U.S., many New England teams had solid performances across all divisions. Since the results are scattered across the interweb, and some races may have gone unnoticed, I decided to compile many of the New England team results with a brief recap for each championship.

Let’s take a look at how New England cross country teams fared in their conference championships…

The #26 Boston College women had their hands full taking on the likes of top ranked Florida State, and #11 Duke for the ACC Conference title held in Blacksburg, Virginia. The Eagles fared third overall with 82 points behind Florida State (35) and Duke (67).

Liv Westphal and Jillian King both had strong performances leading BC’s 1-2 punch as they posted top 10 finishes of 9^th and 10^th respectively. Bridget Dahlberg and Morgan Mueller also contributed to BC’s 3^rd place finish with 15 and 16 place finishes overall. Allison Stasiuk rounded out the Eagles’ top five, placing 33^rd overall (32^ndin team scoring).

Viola Lagat, the younger sister of U.S. record holder and Olympian Bernard Lagat, won the individual title.

On the men’s side, Boston College posted an 8^th place finish led by senior Louis Serafini. The #21 ranked Virginia Tech men took the conference title as senior William Mulherin also captured the individual victory.

Complete results can be found here.

The Umass Amherst women placed 12^th out of 16 programs in the Atlantic-10 conference championships. The Minutemen were led with a 35^th place finish by Carly Zinner. Butler took the overall team title with 37 points and Katie Clark from Butler was also crowned the individual champion.

After reviewing the results and questioning why the Umass Amherst men didn’t fare so well at their conference meet, I resorted to checking the message boards for answers. A credible source on tracktalk.net explained that UMass was holding down the second place position through 6k before two of their key runners, Patrick McGowan and Ben Groleau, DNF’d due to injuries. As a result they fell back six places and only finished 8^th overall. However, the Minutemen still had strong performances up front from Antony Taylor who finished 11^th, and John Oshea who was 20^th.

Butler won the team title with 38 points, as Travis Mahoney of Temple took the individual honors.

Complete results can be found here.

The Brown University and Harvard University women tied as the top New England team in the conference, each scoring 93 points for 3^rd place. Both programs fell only to #7 Cornell who scored 31 points, and Princeton who edged them for second by two points (91). The 1-2-3 punch of Heidi Caldwell, Olivia Mickle, and Margaret Connelly led the Bears’ with 4^th, 5^th, and 7 places finishes respectively. Meanwhile, Harvard had all 5 of their women finish before Brown’s 4^th, as Sammy Silva lead the Crimson pack with a 6^th place finish overall. Yale University was 5^th overall with 108 points led by a 9^th place finish from Nihal Kayali.

Dartmouth University, despite missing a sure 1 point from national title contender Abby D’Agostino, finished 7^th overall with 162 points. There are rumors that D’Agostino is out with an injury, hence why she has not raced since the Paul Short Invitational.

The Dartmouth men had the spotlight on them going into Heps with their workout being highlighted on Flotrack’s Workout Wednesday. They shined as the top New England team in the conference by placing 3^rd overall with 77 points. Will Geoghegan and Phil Royer were up front for the Big Green, finishing 5^th and 6^th respectively. Harvard University placed 5^th with 131 points, Yale 6^th (158) and Brown 8^th (223) to round out the New England teams in the conference.

The #23 Princeton men captured the team victory with 26 points over #10 Columbia (58).

Complete results can be found here.

The top New England team in the Big East conference was #29 UCONN who captured a 2^nd place overall finish with 68 points. Allison Lasnicki and Lindsay Crevoiserat were 4^th and 6^th respectively for the Huskies.

The #10 Providence women posted a 3^rd place finish with 80 points. Sarah Collins led the Friars with a 2^nd place finish overall, while Shelby Greany finished 5^th for the Friars.

Last year’s national champions, Georgetown University, won the team title with a score of 58 points, and Emily Lipari of Villanova won the individual title.

The Providence men finished 4^th in the Big East championships with 109 points. Shane Quinn posted a second place finish overall, leading 6 of his teammates all within the top 40.