Women First at Mt. St. Mary Invitational, Men Third

Newburgh, N.Y. - The St. Joseph's women's cross country team beat all teams at the Mount Saint Mary Invitational and the men's squad finished in front of all Skyline teams (third overall) to show why they were each picked first in the conference's preseason polls. More than half of the Skyline schools travelled to Chadwick Lake Park near Mt. St. Mary College to preview the course that will host the Skyline Cross Country Championships on Oct. 28.

The women's race was dominated by St. Joseph's with eight finishers in the top 20 of the 136 finishers from 19 schools. As usual, senior Christine Cristobal led the way for the Golden Eagles, this time with a school record. Her second place finish in the 5000-meter race with a time of 20:54 broke Stephanie Aiello's time of 22:43 from 2009 on the same course.

The top eight scorers from SJC all were under Aiello's time. Strong races were run by AnnMarie Zigrosser (4th - 21:14), Gillian Goodwin (6th - 21:19), Caitlyn Ryan (7th - 21:25), Maureen Quinn (9th - 21:37), Brittany Guttieri (17th - 22:12), Lauren Waka (18th - 22:15) and Mary Cipriano (20th - 22:17.)

The team scored 27 points, their lowest total of the year. Second place went to Union College with 68 points and third to SUNY Cobleskill with 99 points. St. Joseph's nearest Skyline competitors followed with Mount Saint Mary totaling 108 and Purchase with 136 points.

The St. Joseph's men's team scored 65 points to place third behind Union College's 53 points and SUNY Cobleskill's 62 points. Senior Mike Lombardi (3rd - 28:31) led the top four Eagles runners under Mike Merolle's school record of 30:46 set in 2009. Brian Wersan (5th - 29:06), Jon Afanador (8th - 29:24) and Paul Milazzo (15th - 29:48) - all easily bested the old school record.

St. Joseph's was sitting some of its top runners because of injuries and needed the strong performances by Kevin Sanders in 39th place, Chris Richards in 67th and Thomas McKenna in 75th to hold off its Skyline rivals. Maritime, placed right behind SJC with 106 points as host Mt. St. Mary finished seventh (211 points) and SUNY Farmingdale in eighth (237 points).

Next week, the teams will step up in competition to race against many Division I and II colleges at the NJIT Highlander Invitational at Branch Brook Park in Newark, New Jersey.