The Stony Brook men’s and women’s cross country teams headed to New Britain, Connecticut on Friday for the 15th annual Central Connecticut State University Mini Meet, their fifth meet of the season. The two races of the day were a men’s 5K at 3:30 p.m. and a women’s 3K at 4 p.m.
Both teams had top 15 performances in standings, including a fifth-place performance by the men’s team. Stony Brook’s day began with the men’s race, which featured seven competitors, four being freshmen. The 5K had a total of 127 runners and 21 colleges.
The Stony Brook men’s team had four racers finishing in the top 25. Junior Darian Sorouri led the team, finishing sixth with a time of 15:22:08. He was followed by freshman Jayson Hines, who finished 11th with a time of 15:25:04 and junior Ben McDermott who finished 14th with a time of 15:28:07. Sophomore Luke Coulter placed 24th with a time of 15:38:02.
The remainder of the freshmen finished after Coulter, including a 16:07:01 finish by Paul Catalano, earning him a 54th place spot. Freshmen Eric Cunha and Brendan Foley crossed the finish line consecutively, finishing 69th and 70th place respectively.
In the women’s 3K, the Stony Brook women’s team joined the fleet of teams this year after an absence from the Mini Meet last year, placing 15th out of 21 teams.
Junior Holly Manning, who finished with a time of 10:39:00, led the way for the women with a strong 16th place performance among the 138 racers. Junior Molly Dearie and sophomore Ciara Murphy placed 66th and 77th respectively with times of 11:12:08 and 11:17:03.
Junior Melissa Riback placed two spots behind Murphy at 11:18:00. Trailing her were the final two Seawolves to cross the line — senior Cassandra Leonard and freshman Krista Goodman, with placements of 121st and 127th respectively. Leonard finished with a time of 12:20:08 and Goodman at 13:24:03.
Stony Brook competed against 26 colleges from the Northeast in competition, including reigning champions New Hampshire and Yale of the men’s 5K and women’s 3K respectively.
UMass Amherst won the event on the men’s side, with four of the team’s runners finishing in the top 15. New Hampshire won the women’s 3K, making it back-to-back years that UNH has won on either the men’s or women’s side.
Head coach Andy Ronan was enthusiastic about his team’s effort, especially from his younger core of runners.
“It is a final tune up for some of our athletes before the conference championships and it is also the last opportunity for a few athletes to make the bus for the America East meet in Vermont next week,” Ronan said in a press release. “This race also gave the freshmen a chance to run over a more familiar distance and it is a good check mark on the fitness of our middle-distance crew that have been working hard to get ready for the indoor season.”
The teams head to Burlington, Vermont for their next meet and biggest task so far this season, the America East Championships. The men and women will be competing against their conference opponents on Saturday, Oct. 28. at 10 a.m.
