Great Success! ‘Gate Harriers Reign Supreme

Last Saturday, the women’s and men’s cross-country teams competed at the Albany Invitational. Despite featuring some tough competition, both squads produced impressive and encouraging results.

The women’s team finished a noteworthy third out of 29 teams on its way to defeating UMass and Binghamton, two key Northeast region opponents. Every single Colgate runner had a personal-best time for the 5k course and the Colgate’s top five finishers completed the course within 53 seconds of each other. First-year Stacey Marion led the charge for Colgate yet again, finishing seventh out of 239 runners with a time of 17:45. She also won her second Patriot League Rookie of the Week award for her efforts. Senior Elizabeth Kennedy continued her streak of impressive performances, finishing right behind Marion with a ninth-place time of 17:54. Senior Kathryn Marvel registered a 19th place time of 18:21, and sophomore Emily Oliver finished one-place and two seconds behind her. Rounding out the scoring for Colgate was junior Jessica Kielty, who finished in 32nd place with a time of 18:38. As a result of their performance in the Albany Invitational, the Raiders have jumped up a spot in the Northeast Regional rankings to 14th.

“We’re very excited about being moving up in the rankings,” women’s cross country Head Coach Laura Nardelli said. “Everyone is kind of watching us in the conference, which is a nice feeling. Our women are really rising up and starting to run tough and as a team.”

On the men’s side, Colgate finished ninth out of 26 teams. The Raiders were led by tough-running sophomore Lyle Tolli, who battled to a sixth-place finish with a time of 25:09. Tolli ran an average pace of 5:04 for each mile and missed finishing fifth by three seconds. First-year runner and Colgate’s number two man Ed Sheridan also ran an impressive race, finishing 23rd in 25:59. Fellow first-years Griffith Cannon, Dan Gleason, and Grant Stauffer proved experience does not deter success on the cross country course by rounding out Colgate’s scoring group and finishing 55th, 73rd and 79th respectively. All three runners were within 21 seconds of each other. The Raider’s upperclassmen were not far behind, as junior Tim Drucker finished in 27:17, sophomore Bryan Kretschmer in 27:23 and senior Jeffrey Tufts in a career-best 27:28.

“Overall the team improved from last year, which is what I expected,” men’s cross country Head Coach Art McKinnon said. “We have some strong guys filling in our fourth, fifth and sixth slots which will be crucial for the Patriot League Championships.”

Both teams will rest up and train through next weekend before heading to Lafayette for the Patriot League Championship on October 27.