September 20th at Umass Dartmouth

Full Results

Team Scoring

Varsity - Men 2nd with 115 and Women 2nd with 88

Junior Varsity - Men 6th with 194 and Women 2nd with 50

Individual Results

J - signifies those in the JV Race

Race Recap

Runners of the Meet - Mercedes Taylor and Ben Mears

With the teams’ quote of the week being “Running is about adapting to the unexpected and being able to modify plans at the last minute. Like all life, it’s about taking risks,” the men’s and women’s teams practiced adapting to the unexpected this weekend at the UMass Dartmouth Invitational. The teams’ race strategies were well-guarded secrets until minutes before each race, but both teams adapted well and executed according to the plan. Both teams finished 2nd - Men losing top honors to Keene State while women bowed to MIT. The varsity men were instructed to have five runners together through three miles, before taking off at their pace of choice in the last two miles. Though they got out a little bit slowly, the pack of five moved up throughout the first three miles, before breaking up with two miles to go. Will Yochum probably ran the fastest last two miles of anyone in the race, moving all the way up to sixth place and running 25:14, close to his PR. Carlyle Eubank (25:32) also had a solid finish, as did Daniel Murner (25:42), who must have been moving so fast at the end that the finish line timers missed him entirely. (As of this writing, the results have the men finishing fourth, because Murner was left out of the results. With Murner added back in there, the team moves up to a very close second.) Harrison Lakehomer, who sat out most of last year, made a solid return (25:42) and Eric Holaday (25:48) rounded out the top five. Ben Mears moved up throughout the race to finish in 25:50, and Peter Foote sacrificed himself a bit by running with the top four early on, but he still hung on for a solid finish (26:04). In the men’s JV race, John McGrail ran aggressively and contended for the win before finishing third in 26:10. Alec Jacobson continued to pleasantly surprise his coaches with his 27:09 finish, and Steve Corsello looked strong as he made his Amherst College debut (27:25).

The women's plan was to keep a tight pack of 5 through the 2 mile mark before splitting up. They did as planned, keeping their pack of 5 intact through the 2 mile mark and were in about 45th place before they set off after the leaders. Elise Tropiano, despite having only 1.1 miles to make up ground, was still able to move quickly through the masses and grab the win a very quick 18:11. Sophie Galleher and Caitlin Murphy finished together - both cracking the Top 10, while Nicole Anderson was a few steps behind to finish in the Top 20. Christina Wong rounded out the scoring, as she placed 52nd and was well faster then her time here last year, as was the case for Zandra Walton, Melissa Pritchard. Liz Dalton was the 5th runner in the pack strategy through 2 miles, but her mid week illness may have sapped some strength needed to finish it off as strong as she hoped. In the JV race, a trio of first years had solid races as Shannon McKenna raced with a lot of poise and nearly won the rae, finishing 2nd in 19:00 while Laura Zaccagnino and Eliza Schalch raced together through the race ad finished 8th and 10th. Mercedes Taylor dipped under 20 minutes for the first time with a great effort, and Cara Giaimo sped in 4 places later, just missing breaking 20 minutes and another 6 spots back saw Melissa Sullivan kicking hard to run 20:29.