This past weekend the Fairfield University men’s and women’s cross country teams held strong as the hosts of the Twenty-eighth annual Fairfield University Cross Country Invitational.
The men’s team, which finished fourth out of seven teams, had high expectations entering the meet as they hoped to reclaim the team title they held in 2002.
“Coming into the meet, we knew the competition was going to be tight, but we really wanted to win our home meet,” said Devin Hagan ’06. “While we fell a little short, we were happy with how we ran as a team since we pretty much all ran our fastest times of the year.”
Senior co-captain Bryan Mahoney, who finished fourth overall amongst the field of 82 runners, was the top runner for the Stags. Mahoney traversed the five-mile course around campus in a time of 26:46.4, his fastest time of the season. Fellow captain Justin Rindos ’05 was the next runner to cross the line for the Stags, finishing in 27:57.4 for a fifteenth place finish. The most impressive performance of the day, however, came from Hagan, who finished just behind Rindos in a time of 28:25.4. Hagan, who is having a breakout season for the Stags, improved his collegiate personal best with the performance, taking over a minute off his best time.
“Devin’s hard work and dedication to the team has really paid off this season, as he has been consistently one of the team runners on the squad,” said Rindos. “It’s really great to see him running so well.”
Overall, the men have been steadily improving throughout the year, and hope their new training regimen under first year coaches Jenn Wyshner and Mike Owen’s will pay off in the end.
“I’m very pleased with the performance of the team so far,” said Rindos. “We have four or five runners now almost running in a tight pack, which will help
immensely later in the season. We just have to trust the training and expect it to benefit us the most come conference championship time.”
On the women’s side, senior leadership also led the way for the Stags as senior co-captains Stephanie Stote and Lauren Wilson were the first Fairfield runners to cross the line. Stote finished eighth with a time of 20:02.5, followed closely by Wilson in ninth with a time of 20:06.1.
The cross country teams will be back in action this coming weekend in Boston, as they get set to race at the New England Championships at Franklin Park.
The teams look to continue their string of stellar performances at the upcoming race, which is one of the biggest and most well respected races in the country.
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