Cross Country

Northampton, Mass. - The Southern Vermont College men's and women's cross country teams competed well in this weekend's Smith College Invitational despite it being a challenging course. Each team ran a 5K race.

Mountaineer Sophomore Lance Spratling (Pittsfield, Mass.) finished with the best time out of the SVC men placing 73^rd out of the event's 144 runners. Following not far behind Spratling was freshman Nick Murray (Hummelstown, Pa.) who placed 85^th in the meet. The Mountaineer men beat out conference foe Elms College placing 12 out of 13 colleges competing on Saturday.

"The conference meets are the pinnacle of the season," said 1^st year coach Joe Catania. "These preliminary meets are about steady improvement and preparing my teams to compete at a higher level at championship time."  

The men's meet was dominated by the U.S. Coast Guard team placing eight runners in the top ten stops. Senior Mike Persun placed in 1^st place with a time of 16:32.

SVC senior Julie Patenaude (Canaan, Vt.) had the best time for the Mountaineer women placing 131^st out of the event's 176 runners. Closely following in Patenaude's shadow was freshman Blair Downing (Metuchen, N.J.) who placed 133^rd. The SVC women placed last overall in the meet, finishing 17^th.

The women's meet was led by Springfield College sophomore Amanda Dipaolo who had a time of 19:55.

The Mountaineer men's and women's cross country team will be back in action Saturday, September 20, as they compete at the Panther Invite at Middlebury College. The race begins at 1:00PM. 

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