It was quite the weekend for the Saint’s runners as the Men’s and Women’s Cross Country teams racked up points, awards and two key wins in the opening race for the 2015-2016 cross country season. It was a strong start for St. Lawrence as they easily dominated the competition with strong performances by both units.
On Saturday, the St. Lawrence Cross Country teams competed in the Plattsburg Cardinal Cross Country Invitational. For the women, St. Lawrence won the team title with 15 points, with Plattsburg taking second and Clarkson taking third. It was a strong and dominating performance by Sophomore Megan Kellogg, who won her first collegiate individual championship and helped to lead the Saints to their perfect 15 point win. Kellogg ran a 18:25.8 time beating teammate Junior Lisa Grohn by 14 seconds. The two were All-Americans were last year and clearly started off the season with All-American performances on Saturday.
Kellogg and Grohn weren’t the only two Saints to shine. First Years Elina Breton, Caroline Driscoll and Anna Breton also produced strong performances as they helped round out the top five for the Saints and helping to secure the win for the women runners.
It was more of the same for the cross country men’s runners as they also took full control of the competition and secured a first place win over Plattsburg and Clarkson. The men took 12 out of the top 13 spots in the race with St. Lawrence’s top 5 finishing within 1:16 of one another. Like the women, the win by St. Lawrence was secured by a first place finish and individual win by Junior Thomas Caulfield as he ran 15:40.6 with a 9 second edge over the second place finisher from Plattsburg. Rounding out the other top five positions were Senior Wesley Kirui in third place, Junior Joe Smith in forth place and First Year Sidi Abdoulaye in fifth place.
“We had a great showing from our guys,” Captain Adam Bankert remarked after the race. The Captain was pleased with the “tremendous improvement” that the team has made in the early weeks of the season and is looking forward to having the success of the weekend carry over into other big events of the season later on in the fall.
From the weekend, both Megan Kellogg and Thomas Caulfield earned Liberty League Runners of the Week awards. The two wins and individual achievements by the running squads gave the Saints a strong start for the 2015 season as they look to continue their success next weekend at the Saratoga Invitational hosted by RPI.