It was a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning, as the Fairfield University Women’s Cross Country team took to the line in pink uniforms and their male counterparts took to the line wearing pink socks.
The Stags transformed the 36th Annual Fr. Victor F. Leeber, S.J. Invitational into a charity run in support of Breast Cancer Awareness.
They ended the race with a first place finish on the men’s side, a second place finish on the women’s side, and over $2600 raised for charity.
“Going into the race I think we were really confident, and then to do so well on our home course and for such a great cause, I think we were definitely really excited,” said captain Molly Leidig,‘14
Junior Howie Rosas won the men’s 8K and also secured a personal best time of 25:59. This was Rosas’ second consecutive race in which he ran a personal best time.
Following Rosas for the men, Connor Kelley ’15, placed fourth overall with a time of 26:22. Junior Brian Cleary, secured the sixth position and Kyle Short ’13 secure the eighth.
The Stags’ top seven was rounded out by Dylan Fisher ’13 who came in ninth, Greg Chase ’13 who came in 15th and John Lobo ’14 who finished 16th.
On the women’s side, Maureen Crimmins ’15 was the first Stag across the line in the third position overall. Crimmins, like Rosas, finished the race with a personal best time in the 5K of 18:55.
Fellow sophomores Danielle Renzi and Cate Forte finished strong in sixth and seventh in the race, while Sam Goodnow ’13 finished in the tenth position.
Sophomore Maggie MacKenzie, and Hillary Maxson ’14 ran their own personal bests in 19:52 and 20:11 respectively. Finishing out the top seven was Kathleen Woods ’16 who crossed the line in 19th.
Beyond the impressive finishes from both teams, the race was even more important as it was a race for a cause.
The Stags came together to raise money in support of finding the cure for Breast Cancer. One of the ways they raised the money was online resources.
“We had the link on the athletic website. I think it made it really easy, having the website set up. All you had to do was hit donate and put in your credit card number. I think that was definitely really helpful, because that’s how we raised a bulk of our money,” said Leidig.
The women’s team was also set up outside of Barone, and had a bake sale on the day of the race, both of which contributed to the $2600 raised.
“I went and did research over the summer… and I just looked up different things to do. And they had this thing Passionately Pink For the Cure, where you can do all sort of sporting events or whatever and I just registered us for that,” Leidig added.
The race was a great success for the Stags, both in terms of how they placed and what they did for Breast Cancer awareness.
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