NE Regional NCAA Qualifier at Conn College

Nov 10th 2007

Full Results Men and Women

Team Scoring

Women - 1st with 40 points!

Men - 1st with 117 points!

Individual Results

Top 35 earn All New England Honors

Men

Women

Race Recap

Athletes of the Meet - Caitlin McDermott-Murphy'09 and Carlyle Eubank'10

A return to the infamous "NESCAC Rash" site (though the marsh loop was removed) of Conn College's Harkness park course proved to be historic for both programs. Having never earned a victory at this meet for either team - the women had finished 2nd and the men had finished no higher then 4th - both teams captured not only the win, but the automatic NCAA Qualifiers that went along with it. The women raced strong and dominated the meet, as they put four runners in the top 10, and their Top 7 all within the top 23 runners to finish with 40 points. Heather Wilson battled stomach cramps through the late stages of the race but was still abel to hold on for 2nd place, while Kim Partee and Elise Tropiano matched their 6 / 7 finishes from NESCAC's 2 weeks ago - all running well under 22 minutes for new XC PR's. Murph came through huge, as she is getting better each race, and finished 10th, just missing breaking 22 minutes while Meg Ray capped the scoring with her 15th place finish in a big PR. Sophie Galleher and Nicole Anderson capped the day with their 21st and 23rd place finishes, and help to lead the team to a win and on to St. Olaf for NCAA's next weekend.

The men came in looking to grab one of the 2 automatic qualifying spots, or at the very least try and finish in the Top 5 to be eligible for one of the at-large berths. Getting out aggressively and setting the tone for the race really paid off as they established themselves as early contenders and fought tooth and nail throughout the race. By 3 miles, the team appeared to be in a tight battle for Top 4 and as they got to the last mile, Will Yochum had moved within the Top 10 and Florian Reichert was battling for Top15, and Daniel Murner, Carlyle Eubank and Eric Holaday were running great and were ahead of all other teams final scoring runners. Coming down the final homestretch, Will kicked in for 9th, while Flow would come in 5 seconds later in 17th. Carlyle, Daniel and Eric finished within 3 seconds of each other, all earning All New England honors to finish the scoring - putting our Top 5 in front of all other teams. Ben Mears had a great race, lowering his PR by a lot, running 26:18 while Mike Harbus finished 20 seconds in back of him. Knowing that they had secured a spot for Nationals was exciting, but shortly after, they found out that they had not only qualified but had replicated the women's finish by capturing the win. This was the first win, as well as the first Top 3 finish in the men's history at this meet, and they will look to continue that momentum as they head out to St. Loaf next weekend.