By Dwayne Dahlbeck

Last weekend’s America East Championships could have been worse for the cross-country teams; they could have been Hartford.

The Hawks were the only thing keeping the Huskies out of last place last Saturday at Franklin Park, as both the men’s and women’s teams finished eighth in their respective fields of nine.

The women finished with 191 points, 155 behind first place BU. The Terriers won the event for the seventh straight time and the 12th time in the last 13 on the strength of three of the top six finishers. In what could have been the grand finale for Meaghan Shaw, the senior finished in 19:00, good for 23rd place.

“This was probably Meaghan’s last meet and she had a real good performance,” said coach Rich Hart. “It’s just a very good distance conference.”

Amy Hicks (19:21, 37th), Amber Cullen (19:35, 42nd), Emily Watson (19:47), and Erin Ballard (20:16) rounded out the scoring for the Huskies.

The meet will probably mark the end of a season coach Hart called, “encouraging.”

“We made some big steps forward this season,” Hart said.

He also expects to make a decision soon about whether or not the women will compete in the NCAA qualifiers in New York.

The men also finished eighth, led for the first time all season by freshman Tom Pratt (27:09, 41st). The Huskies finished with 219 points, 194 behind front-running New Hampshire, who had four of the top five finishers, and fifty three points ahead of Hartford. Jon Litchfield (27:23, 44th), Jared Paul (27:37, 47th), Terry Dougherty (27:46, 50th), and Patrick Stevenson (28:22, 58th) made up the rest of the top five for NU.

Coach Hart said he was disappointed with the men’s finish.

“We had hoped to knock off a couple teams, other than Hartford.” he said. “We were split up to much between our first and fifth guys. I mean, Jim Richards [calf injury] had to drop out and we just don’t have the depth to deal with that.” He went on to say that the men would not compete in the NCAA qualifier.

Despite the poor showing, Hart was optimistic about the future of his young teams.

“We had a good season, but our youth came back to haunt us in this one. We’re in good shape for next year with everybody on both teams but Shaw coming back. This is not what we had hoped for, but I think we’ll be alright in the future.”