Women's Cross Country

Gulls Compete at UMass Dartmouth Invitational

Posted: Sep 19, 2011

NORTH DARTMOUTH, Mass. – The Endicott men’s and women’s cross country teams sent several runners to this past weekend’s Invitational event at UMass Dartmouth and came away with a 29^th place showing in the women’s varsity race.

Kim Shepherd (Essex, Conn.) finished as the top Endicott runner for the second week in a row and placed 142^nd in a field of over 250 runners. Shepherd, who ran the 5 K course in 21:13.96, helped the women’s team to finish in the top-30 of the event contested by 37 schools.

Jillian Mendes (Waterbury Center, Vt.) took 161^st overall with a 21:31.64, while Holly Davis (Guilford, Conn.) (171^st, 21:46.05 and Deanna Slobin (Old Saybury, Conn.) (195^th, 22:30.35) were just behind.

"Today shows me that our women are becoming a pretty solid racing unit," said head coach Sharyn Longo. “Kim has become dependable, and I think this year she's really going to come into her own. Jillian and Holly finished within 15 seconds of each other, and if some of the others move up just a little bit, we'll look pretty good going into the conference meet.”

Several women also participated in the women’s sub-varsity race. Jocelyn Kane (East Longmeadow, Mass.), Natalie Scardina (Portsmouth, R.I.) and Gretchen St. Pierre (Colchester, Vt.) finished within less than 2 minutes of each other, and the Endicott women took 12^th place of the 16 teams in the event. “The women’s sub varsity race highlighted the future for the women’s team,” said Longo.

On the men’s side, senior captain Greg Payne (North Attleboro, Mass.) improved on his 68^th place finish last year. Payne ran the varsity race placing 57^th in a time of 26:36.61. Freshman Alex Walecka (Dartmouth, Mass.) ran a very good sub varsity race, placing 85^th (30:27) of 140 runners. “The men are a very young team,” said Longo. “Today was a good start to a promising future.”

MIT won both the men’s and the women’s events, with Brandeis taking second on the men’s side and Coast Guard finishing as the women’s runner up.

Both the men’s and women’s cross country teams are off this coming weekend. They will prepare for October 1^st, when they will travel to Brunswick, Maine for the Bowdoin Invitational.