NORTH DARTMOUTH, Mass. – The Eastern Connecticut State University men's and women's teams repeated their finishes from a year ago at the 29th Annual Little East Conference Cross Country Championships, staged this year on the University of Masschusetts Dartmouth campus.
Women
Eastern repeated in third place among seven teams, but significantly narrowed the gap between themselves and the top two scoring teams. The women had all five of their scoring runners among the top 22 – placing two among the Top 10 -- but it couldn't stop Keene State College from winning its 16th straight championship. The Warriors put their top five runners ahead of the University of Southern Maine's fifth, but USM seniors Jasmine Boyle and Hannah Damron finished 2-3 to lift the Huskies past Eastern.
Keene State shut out the field a year ago, easily dispatching Southern Maine and Eastern. This year, the Owls racked up 35 points for a still-comfortable win over Southern Maine (59), but Eastern sliced 15 points off the Huskies' advantage over the Warriors from a year ago. Eastern totaled 70 points for an easy 54-point lead over fourth-place Plymouth State University.
Sophomore Samantha McKosky (Deep River) – last year's LEC Rookie-of-the-Year -- was fifth overall and repeated All-LEC honors and senior captain Mariah McPhee (Bristol) was tenth to earn All-LEC recognition for the first time (all-conference was expanded for the first time this year from the top seven to top ten). McKosky was seventh last year, McPhee 19th. Junior Kassandrah Banks (Wethersfield) jumped from 54th a year ago to 15th this year. Rounding out Eastern's top five scoring runners were juniors Ariel Smith (Stratford) – the 2014 LEC Rookie-of-the-Year – and Amanda Terenzi (Coventry, RI).
Eastern's five scoring runners all traversed the flat 5,000 meter course in 20 minutes or less. At 19:04, McKosky knocked nearly a minute off her time over this course six weeks ago and Terenzi was 33 seconds faster than earlier attempt on this course.
Men
The men placed fifth for the eighth time in the last ten years. Junior Cooper Goslin (South Windsor), 23rd a year ago in this race, moved up to 15th this year over the 8,000 meter course, with junior Noah Hallisey (East Lyme) moving up from 35th a year ago to 18th as the team's No. 5 runner. Senior captain Chris Armstrong (Bolton) also improved from 36th a year ago into the Top 25 this year, at No. 24.
While Goslin missed this year's previous race on this course, the Warriors' other scoring runners showed appreciable improvement. Hallisey ran over a minute faster Saturday, and Chris Armstrong 26 seconds better. No. 4 junior runner Ryan Jones (Suffield) dropped 27 seconds off his time of six weeks ago on this course, and No. 5 runner Max Armstrong (Ledyard), a junior, improved by 67 seconds
The University of Southern Maine ended Keene State College's four-year run as champions with an 11-point victory over the Owls, who edged Massachusetts Dartmouth by a point for third.
Eastern closes out the season Nov. 12 at the NCAA New England Regional Championships at Stanley Park in Westfield, Mass.
