GORHAM, ME – Saint Joseph's College placed 31st out of 53 participating colleges and universities in the NCAA DIII New England 6K Women's Cross Country Championship at the Narragansett School.
Junior Amber Dostie (Standish, Maine) paced the Monks and placed 62nd out of 371 runners with a 22:50 effort while sophomore Lauren Rabideau (Ballston Spa, N.Y.) was 145th (24:20) and junior Heather Eaton (Lincolnville, Maine) finished 151st (24:26) for Saint Joseph's.
Freshman Marie Harrington (Limerick, Maine) placed 227th (25:38), first-year Mikaela Rowell (Derry, N.H.) was 319th (28:10), sophomore Grace Dancoes (Falmouth, Maine) finished 329th (28:37) and freshman Marisa Lundy (Merrimac, Mass.) raced to a 333rd-place (28:54) finish.
The Monks placed as the top Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) program, one slot ahead of 2013 GNAC Champion Emmanuel College, which accumulated 948 team points in the NCAA Regional.
Williams College, which placed four runners in the top 10, won the regional event with 44 team points, 13 ahead of runner-up Middlebury College, which featured four team members in the top 16 overall. Both Williams and Middlebury, ranked sixth and second nationally in the most recent USTFCCCA NCAA DIII Poll, have earned automatic berths into next weekend's NCAA Division III National Championship race in Hanover, Indiana.
Rounding out the top five teams were MIT in third place with 127 points, followed by Tufts University with 134 and Brandeis University with 168. All three programs could earn an at-large berth into the national championship and will learn of their fate on Sunday.
Williams senior Kaleigh Kenny toured the 6K course in 21:02 to win the event while Roger Williams University junior Hannah Zydanowicz finished second (21:10), MIT's Elaine McVay placed third (21:18) and Middlebury's Alison Maxwell and Erzsebet Nagy finished fourth (21:27) and fifth (21:28), respectively.
The NCAA regional meet concludes the 2013 season for the Monks.
Saint Joseph's College is Maine's only Catholic liberal arts college, providing a supportive, personalized and career-focused education for more than 100 years. From its 430-acre campus on the shores of Sebago Lake, the College offers more than 40 undergraduate programs to a population of approximately 1,000 students. Saint Joseph's College Online provides certificates, undergraduate and advanced degrees for working adults through an online learning program. For more, visit www.sjcme.edu.