MIDDLETOWN, Conn. – Sophomore Lee Cattanach (New London) and senior Cora Gingras (East Hampton) recorded the fastest times for the Eastern Connecticut State University men's and women's cross country teams at the Wesleyan University Cross Country Invitational of Saturday.
The times of the race may have been slower compared to the meet last week at UMass Dartmouth Invitational due to the rigorous course layout. According to head coach Kathy Manizza, the course contained a huge hill called "The Monster". Another reason for the slower times of Eastern runners was the training regime for the week. The team trained hard last week and didn't get much rest in order to prepare for the New England Open Championships October 7 at Westfield, MA.
The women's team placed 8th in the 11-team field, which was comprised of 132 runners. Gingras recorded the best time for the women's team (20:53), taking 40th place (scoring 35 points) over the 5,000 meter run. The women continue to run close together, with all of the five scoring runners finishing within 1:44.
The same five women who scored points last week scored again at Wesleyan Junior Katie France (Portland) was the women's second runner, clocking a time of 21:17. Finishing just 20 seconds later was freshman Kylie McCartney (Manchester). Junior Alexa Palasky (Griswold) ran fourth scoring 52 points at a time of 22:16, while Courtney Magario (Voluntown) clocked a time of 22:37 to be the fifth runner for Eastern.
In the men's field of 95 runners, Cattanach recorded the fastest time for Eastern (27:32). The time placed Cattanach 18th (scoring 18 points) and helped Eastern finish eighth in the 10-team field on Saturday.
Manizza indicated that Lee had a good performance but the difficulty of the course slowed down his time. An improvement the men's team made this week was closing the gap between Cattanach and the team's other runners. Sophomore Dave Klein (New Milford) finished in 48th place (scoring 36 points) with a time of 29:10. Finishing just 45 seconds later (29:55) was junior Evan Glaude (East Hampton), who finished in 58th place (44 points). Eastern's No. 4 runner, freshman Steven LaFlamme (Moosup) and No. 5 runner Kyle Shaw (Lebanon), a sophomore, placed within 40 seconds of each other. LaFlamme was clocked at 33:09 and Shaw at 33:49.
This meet was seen as a building block for the New England Open Championships in two weeks. The team trained hard last week and was a little tired going into the meet on Saturday. Manizza plans to have the team train hard again this week but slow it down the week before the New England Open in order to give the runners rest. The past three weeks of hard training should benefit the times in two weeks.
The New England Open is a large meet that includes Division I schools. Manizza said it would be a great experience for the team. It will also be interesting to see where the runners finish in a meet this big since last year the team did not choose to compete.
