DORCHESTER, MA – Freshman Amber Dostie (Standish, Maine) captured top individual honors and Saint Joseph's placed sixth with 144 team points in the 17th Annual Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Cross Country Championship, which took place at the nationally renowned Franklin Park course on Saturday afternoon.
Dostie outran the runner-up finisher, Laura Furfaro from Johnson & Wales, by 39 seconds and toured the 5K trail in 19:45 to collect GNAC Rookie and Runner of the Year accolades. Her performance also ranks as the fastest time an SJC runner has completed the GNAC Championship in six years as a competing member of the league.
Dostie's sub-20 time in the conference meet places her in an exclusive club as one of three SJC female runners - Kristin Lindholm and Sarah Willis '08 being the others – to have recorded a pair of under-20 efforts in the same season. The first-year runner has paced the Monks in all five meets in which she has participated this fall.
Her effort also ranks as the seventh-best in GNAC Championship history and is the fastest since Betsy Suda of Emmanuel posted a 19:31 time in the 2002 conference meet.
Johnson & Wales totaled 64 team points to edge Emmanuel College by eight points and collect top team honors for the second consecutive season and the fifth time overall. The Wildcats placed all five scorers in the top 18 while the fourth and fifth runners for the Saints finished 23rd and 26th, respectively.
Simmons College finished third with 81 points, Emerson College was fourth with 100, and Lasell College placed fifth with 106 points. Saint Joseph's (144), Norwich University (189), Mount Ida College (258), Saint Joseph College (CT) (264), Suffolk University (291), Rivier College (314), Anna Maria College (335) and Albertus Magnus College (337) rounded out the field of 13 competing institutions.
For the Monks, Sarah Cadorette '15 (Lyman, Maine) posted a 22:06 effort for the second consecutive event and finished 21st overall and Ashley Condon '13 (Sumner, Maine) toured the 5K course in 22:28 – a career-best effort – to place 25th individually.
Audrey Curry '15 (Perry, Maine) (52nd, 24:25), Melissa Deplanche '15 (Dover, N.H.) (60th, 24:52), Lauren Tidd '13 (Walpole, N.H.) (76th, 25:56), Emily O'Connor '15 (84th, 26:14), Cally Hughes '13 (Johnson, Vt.) (104th, 29:07), and Rachel Sevigny '12 (Saco, Maine) (110th, 30:34) all participated in the GNAC Championship for Saint Joseph's. Curry, Deplanche, Hughes and Tidd also recorded career-best times.
Saint Joseph's will compete in the ECAC Championship at Williamstown, Massachusetts next Saturday at 11:00 AM.
GNAC RELEASE:
DORCHESTER, Mass. - The 17th running of the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Cross Country Championship took place at the nationally renowned Franklin Park course on Saturday, October 29th. Johnson & Wales University captured both the men's and women's team championships, marking the second consecutive year that the Wildcats have claimed both titles.
Emerson College and Emmanuel College played co-hosts to the 2011 Championship, which was held in the Boston area for the first time. Poor weather in the days preceding the meet caused for a few slight course modifications for the safety of the student-athletes. The fourteen GNAC member institutions made the easy race-day adjustments and the two meets went off without a hitch.
The women's 5k race featured the Wildcats edging out runner-up Emmanuel College to claim their second-straight and fifth overall GNAC Cross Country Championship. JWU finished with a team total of 64 points. The Saints locked up second place with 72 points, while the first-year varsity program at Simmons College surprised the field by racing to a third place team finish with 81 points.
Saint Joseph's College (Me.) freshman Amber Dostie (Standish, Me.) cruised to a 1st place win and claimed both Runner of the Year and Rookie of the Year honors. Dostie paced the field of 126 runners and finished the 5k race in 19:45. Johnson & Wales junior Laura Furaro (North Warren, N.J.) improved on her 3rd place finish in 2010 to finish 2nd this year in a time of 20:24. Saint Joseph College (Conn.) sophomore Julie Pattyson (Seymour, Conn.) raced to a 3rd place time of 20:53. Simmons freshman Shelly Potter (York, Me.) paced the Sharks with her 4th place finish in 20:54. Emmanuel rookie Ameena Dye (Syracuse, N.Y.) claimed 5th place with a time of 20:57.
Along with the top-five, Lasell's Meghan Missett (Lowell, Mass.), Emmanuel's Joslyn DelSignore (Taunton, Mass.), Emerson's Heather Hoglund (Groton, Mass.), Simmons' Moriah Cohen (Bennington, Vt.) and Norwich's Mallory Clark (Homer City, Pa.) each earned GNAC All-Conference honors with their top-ten finishes. After being voted the GNAC Men's Cross Country Coach of the Year in 2010, Emmanuel Head Coach Tony DaRocha was selected the 2011 GNAC Women's Coach of the Year.