Cross Country Running Away with Big Finishes

The Men’s and Women’s Cross-Country teams traveled to the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth this past Saturday to compete in the Corsair Classic. Both teams had outstanding performances, breaking personal and school records. Among the 45 teams that were competing, PSU Men came in 11th as the Women were right behind finishing 19th.

With that, the Women’s team finished the best the program has seen at the Corsair.

Another electric performance from freshman Kim Bowles (Wonalancet NH) contributed to the team’s overall placement. Bowles went under 20 minutes when running the 5k; finishing 54th out of over 300 racers. Right behind her were teammates Haley Dennis (Coventry RI) and Lora Giguere (Tolland CT) finishing 75th and 85th respectively. Grabbing the final points in the 5k was Mia DeMarco (Merrimack NH).

Bowles was very happy with her performance saying, “I was really excited to break twenty minutes for the first time. Not only was that great but multiple other girls on my team had seasonal bests... I am really lucky to be part of such a hardworking team.” Bowles also races for Track and Field in the spring but her goals for the rest of her cross-country season include “break 19:30 in a 5k... the team as a whole would like to win the Little East Conference Championship.”

Competing among the Panthers were school rivals Keene State, Rhode Island College, UMass Dartmouth, Castleton, and Southern Maine. Within the Little East Conference teams, PSU finished third. Another big CLE finish was from Bowles, finishing 7th from the 9 other conference teams.

The Men’s team had big performances once again from seniors Sam Brunnette (Newport Center VT) and Warren Bartlett (Loudon NH). Brunnette finished first with a time of 24:32:02 but had to fight for this position. A runner from Bridgewater State was right with him for the majority of the race and only ended up finishing seven seconds behind him. Bartlett was a just under a minute and 30 seconds behind his teammate and ended with a placement of 26th.

Bartlett has big hopes for his final season with PSU cross-country. “My number one goal this year is to qualify for NCAA nationals, I qualified for indoor track last year and I have yet to do it in cross country...my other goal is to break 25 minutes in the 8k.” He also comments that cross-country is his weakest running season. Qualifying for NCAA nationals is a goal he’s set since he was a freshman, and now is the time to accomplish that. “The Little East Conference Meet will be a major challenge not only for me but for my team... my biggest personal challenge will be getting top 7 at the New England Regional meet in November because that is where you qualify to get to NCAA nationals, it is going to be a tough race, and I think the first step in achieving that is simply believing I can do it.”

Marcus Cryan (Topsfield MA) earned himself a personal best finish with a time of 27:01:48 in the 8k. He finished 64th; making himself, Bartlett and Brunnette the three finishers within the top 65. Jared Wolf (Tyngsborough MA) also finished with a personal best of 27:54:84 to be one of the final Panthers to add points. Kyle Mau (Dover NH) and Matt Lyle (Loudon NH) were less than a second apart from each other, finished 44th and 45th respectively. The freshman pairs fastest mile were also two tenths of a second from each other.

The men’s team ended with 297 points and the women’s team with 540.

The cross-country teams are back this weekend traveling to Williams College to compete in the Purple Valley Classic. Sub varsity starts at11:30 a.m. and varsity following with a start time of 12:10 p.m.

Some final words from Bartlett: “it will definitely be weird after I graduate not having a team I can rely on anymore, so I am most importantly just having fun and enjoy whatever time I have left with this awesome team and making sure that some of the traditions we have made."