WATERFORD, Conn. – Senior Ryan Escoda (Newtown) led his teammates at the tape for the 17^th time in 18 career races for the men and senior Maggie Santacroce (Bristol) was the women's pacesetter for the final four races of her career at the NCAA Division III Mideast Regional Cross Country Championship Saturday at Harkness Memorial State Park which closed out the 2021 season.
 
In the newly-aligned Mideast Regional, the Eastern men were 11^th among 26 scoring teams and the women 19^th out of 24. Escoda was 47^th (top 27 percent) in an official scoring field of 174 men's runners over 8,000 meters while Santacroce was 79^th (top 46 percent) among 172 official women's runners over 6,000 meters.
 
In the 2019 New England Regional Championship, 54 men's and 54 women's teams competed at Brunswick, ME. Beginning this year, that regional was divided into Mideast and East regionals. The East is comprised of 46 New England institutions and the Mideast is make up of 29 institutions from New England and 12 from New York.
 
Each of the ten regional championship teams throughout the country and seven individuals not members of qualifying teams qualify for the national championship meet this Saturday at Louisville, KY. In addition, 22 at-large teams from across the ten regions are added to the national championship mix, making for a 32-team national meet.
 
The top five finishing teams among the men in the Mideast Regional Saturday were nationally-ranked teams while the top four finishing teams in the women's field were nationally-ranked. Williams College and Middlebury College out of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), finished 1-2 in both the men's and women's fields. The Williams men are ranked fourth nationally, the Williams women sixth.
 
The top 35 finishers in each region are accorded All-Region recognition.
 
With the re-alignment, Eastern is joined in the Mideast by Little East Conference members Castleton University, Rhode Island College and Western Connecticut State University, as well as by five of the eight members from the NESCAC.
 
The Eastern men, who were 17^th out of 54 teams at the 2019 New England Regional, were the second-highest finishing team from New England Saturday outside of those schools representing the NESCAC, finishing second only to Springfield College. The Eastern men totaled 363 points, 50 points behind Springfield.
 
Among LEC institutions in the men's competition, Rhode Island was 17^th, Western Connecticut 20^th and Castleton 26^th (last). In the women's field, Western Connecticut was 24^th (last) while Castleton did not score as a team and Rhode Island did not compete.
 
Eastern's five scoring runners for the men ran as a pack, finishing within 85 seconds and 43 places of each other. Following Escoda (26:41) were senior classmates John Walker (Westerly, RI) and Jorich Swift (Mansfield), first-year runner Noah Linton (Tolland) and sophomore Jake Haddad (Vernon). Walker, who joined after the start of the season, was 67^th (27:29), Swift 77^th (27:44), Linton 82^nd (27:47) and Haddad 90^th (28:11). A month ago on this course, Linton was timed in 28:58, an improvement of 1:11 Saturday, while Escoda ran virtually an identical time from the earlier race at Harkness.
 
Santacroce, Eastern's No. 5 runner (206^th overall) at the 2019 New England Regional, improved her time by 29 seconds from a month ago at Harkness. Two of Eastern's four remaining scoring runners were true freshmen in first-year runners Iris Bazinet (Pomfret) and Alison LeClerc (Wolcott), with No. 5 runner Elisabeth Rodil (Milford, NH) competing at Eastern only last fall during a virtual season. Also among the team's top five were junior Keara Fontaine (North Kingstown, RI), who ran No. 4 in the 2019 regionals as a first-year member of the program.
 
Saturday, following Santacroce (24:43) were Bazinet 104^th (25:30), Fontaine 110^th (25:37), LeClerc 118^th (25:43) and Rodil 138^th (26:36).
 
For the men, rounding out the official top seven runners were first-year runner Liam Stafford (Alexandria, VA) and sophomore Thomas Stone (Glastonbury), who crossed the finish line simultaneously at 114^th and 115^th.  Stafford was timed in 29:10, Stone 29:11. Stone improved his time from a month ago on this course by 43 seconds.
 
For the women, junior Jill McGahan (Dedham, MA) rounded out the team's six official runners, with a scoring place of 148^th (27:23).