By Alex Bensley, news staff

The Northeastern University men’s and women’s cross country teams travelled separately last weekend, with athletes racing in Boston and Charlottesville, Virginia. The women finished in 22nd place while the men finished in 19th.

“I thought our teams opened up the season showing some real potential,” head coach Cathrine Erickson said. “We split our squad up this weekend and we saw some good things from all of our groups.”

The Huskies kicked off their season Friday, as six women and seven men competed in the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown at Franklin Park. Fourth-year James Garbier led the way for the men with a time of 26:11, placing 98th in the 8K. After Garbier were first-years Stephen Flanagan, Tyler Miller, Brian Keller and Chase Hyland (26:19, 26:21, 26:22 and 26:51, respectively).

Second-year Amanda Hickey led the way for the women at 19:19 in the 5K, followed by third-year Amy Piccolo, first-year Louise Holway, fourth-year Corrine Myers and first-year Kelsey Walak to round out the top five (19:21, 19:31, 19:32 and 19:38, respectively).

The next day, Huskies took the course at the Panorama Farms Invite in Charlottesville. Third-year Dan Romano of the men’s squad finished in 15th place with a time of 25:01, but the men couldn’t get enough finishers near Romano to salvage a top-five finish, placing eighth out of 10 teams. Second-year Chance Lamberth, first-year Ben Kovacks, first-year Joshua Holihan and fourth-year Daniel Condon rounded out the top five (25:45, 26:25, 26:52 and 27:00, respectively).

For the women, second-year Louisa Wise finished in 33rd place, leading the way with a time of 18:37. Fourth-year Lucy Young, third-year Sarah Adler, fourth-year Brooke Wojeski and fourth-year Kerri Ruffo crossed the line after Wise (18:58, 19:18, 19:19 and 19:32, respectively). The women finished in 10th out of 11 teams.

“Definitely not as well as we could have [done],” Wise said. “There were some heat issues and it was a pretty tough course. We’ve had a group hitting fast times [in practice], but it just didn’t go over well [on Saturday].”

The men and women wait until Oct. 6 for their next race, the New England Championships in Boston.

Erickson also looked forward to the rest of the season, admiring the program’s young talent.

“The potential and growth that this group brings to the program excites me most about this season,” said Erickson. “We have a lot of really good, young talent who are excited about being Huskies.”