Worcester State College Cross Country Recap

MASCAC Championship Cross Country Meet

10/20/07

MEN

The Worcester State Men’s Cross Country team came close to accomplishing their season long goal at the MASCAC Championships held at Moore State Park in Paxton, MA. Finishing a mere four points behind team champion, Westfield State (46pts to 50pts), the Lancers settled for their best finish at the Championships, taking second overall. Though not pulling off the possible upset, Worcester State did place three in the top six including overall individual champion, Forest Wilber.  On way to the victory, Wilber broke his own course record established just weeks ago at the City Championships. He ran the challenging and hilly course in 27:03.9 for the five mile distance. Teammate, sophomore Adam Malek broke into the top five with a time of 28:04.6 for his fifth place finish. Junior Rob Lind, despite coming off a week of rehab, was close behind, running 28:19.1 to finish 6^th overall. Senior Justin Snair, running well for the second week in a row, was fourth for the Lancers finishing with a time of 29:27.2 and 18^th place in the field. Rounding out the top five was junior Chris Mancuso who was 20^th overall, putting five in the top twenty. Freshmen Stephen Gemme finished 26^th overall and junior Andrew Rossi came in as the seventh WSC finisher in 45^th place. While the win escaped this talented group of harriers, all but two team members were able to better their times from three weeks ago on the course, some by considerable margins.  In addition to most of the top seven, freshmen Robert Stahelski and Adam Boudreau and sophomores Joe Bourdelais and Norman Everett all improved markedly. Newcomer Joey Bianchi also made progress improving as the season continues.  Junior Derrick Willand had a solid effort after dealing with a couple of weeks of “down” time.  The squad will regroup for the next challenge at the Alliance Conference Championships this coming Saturday at UMass-Dartmouth. In this meeting of the MASCAC and Little East schools, Worcester State hopes to fair well, if not better than it has ever been able to do. Also, with its strong threesome up front and solid second pack, the Lancers will again take aim at upending Westfield St. and the other MASCAC rivals on the faster and generally less difficult course being run at the Alliance meet.

WOMEN

Worcester State Women’s Cross Country team finishes 4^th of 8 in the MASCAC Championship. The meet was held at the Moore State Park in Paxton. The team was lead by Senior Captain Lindsay Shields. Shield’s earned All Conference Honors by placing 6^th overall in the meet. Junior Becky Kniss had a very impressive showing placing 15^th overall. Kniss dropped her time on this course by 2 minutes in 3 weeks. Kara Antrim placed 18^th rounding out the top twenty in the meet. To finish out Worcester States top 5 Junior Jillian Parzych finished 32^nd, and Adrienne Fisher finished 38^th. Worcester States other finishers were freshman Angela Roux was 41^st, senior Sally Geary 43^rd, and freshman Rachel Sullivan 46^th. The team will compete next week at the Alliance Championship at UMass Dartmouth.