By Cynthia Retamozo
Northeastern dominated the Hofstra Invitational at Bethpage State Park in Farmingdale, N.Y. Saturday.
The women’s team triumphed over Hofstra, St. John’s and the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) as they scored a total of 30 points, the lowest ever recorded for women at the site where they came in first overall.
“This was a good season opening,” said head coach Sherman Hart. “We haven’t started dancing in the streets yet, but today looked very promising.”
Junior Kristie Gagnon won with a time of 23:47.07 on the 6K course with junior Brittany Moriarty coming in third (24:01.83). In seventh place was junior Maura Carten (24.57.50).
But the most noteworthy achievement at Bethpage was the Huskies’ pack running, where a group of runners from one team stick and finish together. Coming in from ninth to 13th places were all NU runners. Hart said they’ve been looking for this kind of pack running for years, and is “nothing but smiles” about the fact that four of them were freshmen.
The men’s cross country team met similar success as they placed second at the Invitational. Senior Tom Brown came in fourth with a time of 27:10.08 on the 8K course with junior Brian Kennedy behind him (27:22.64) and sophomore Ryan Miling placing 11th (5:41.90.)
The men also took advantage of their strong pack running skills, as NU runners filled spots 11 through 15. The team accumulated 42 points in total, beating NJIT.
