The St. Lawrence University Cross Country teams captured the team and individual titles for both genders at the New York State Collegete Track Conference championship meet on Saturday.
On the men’s side, the Saints finished with 26 points, scoring just under half of the points of the second place team, Hamilton, who finished with 53 . Leading the Saints was Senior Trevor Bibb, who ran the 8-kilometer course in a time of 25:38 (5:10 min/mile). Rounding out the scoring quintet were Sophomore Thomas Caulfield (3rd, 25:53), Junior Wesley Kirui (4th, 26:04), Sophomore Joseph Smith (8th, 26:40) and Junior Spencer Patterson (10th, 26:50).
Despite the win, there was a sense of unfinished business in the locker room over the following week. “Some of the guys are showing mixed responses from a challenging block of training and their results certainly showed that” observed coach John Newman after the race. Most notably, Senior Scotty Smolensky was given the day off due to a minor injury, but should return to action this week. Smolensky is consistently a member of the Saints top seven. That “challenging block of training” included three workouts in four days that saw some members of the team run 50.5 miles.
On the women’s side, runner-up Ithaca finished with more than three times the score of a SLU squad led by Senior Cassia Hameline. Hameline’s time of 21:50.7 for 6 kilometers earned her the individual meet title as well as Division III Runner of the Week. The other four scorers were Sophomore Lisa Grohn (2nd,22:13), Senior Anne Martino (4th,22:28), First Year Megan Kellogg (6th,22:48) and First Year Carrie Pomainville (7th,23:18).
Coach Mike Howard, who Coach of the Meet for the success of his program reflected that “It was another very solid day for the ladies…Cassie was impressive and our First Year class of Meagan Kellogg, Carrie Pomainville and Ashley Leta ran lights out for us.” Leta was also a top-10 finisher, placing 9th in a time of 23:22. Kellogg’s 6th place finished earned her Rookie of the Year honors as the top First-Year finisher.
The Saints will next visit Saratoga to compete in the Liberty League championship where they have enjoyed lots of prior success. Since the inaugural meet in 1995, the men’s team has won all 19 championships and the women have taken the title 13 times. The last time a school whose initials were not S.L.U. emerged victorious was 2002, when current seniors were in 4th grade.