Men's Cross Country: Raiders compete at Keene State Invitational

Story written and posted by Anthony Perry, Rivier University Sports Information Director

KEENE, N.H. – The Rivier University Men's and Women's Cross Country teams competed at the annual Keene State Invitational earlier today with the course being held at the Owl Athletic Complex. Both races featured 18 colleges/universities and accumulated a field close to 200 runners on the day.

Men's Results

Senior Yash Jagtap (North Andover, Mass.) led the way for the Men's team this afternoon as he finished with a time of 31:54.0 in the 8k event. His time was good for a 146th finish and a 103rd place as he was the first member of the Men's team to cross the line. The other five runners from Rivier all finished 189-193 and placed between 106-110 in the field of 193 runners. Freshmen Chance Easton-Jones (Manchester, Conn.) (41:19.5), Javier Carrasco-Alvarez (Madrid, Spain) (42:23.3), T.J. Magliozzi (Stoneham, Mass.) (45:05.6), Nikolas Pignone (Stoneham, Mass.) (45:05.8) and Nesta Roberts (Manchester, Conn.) (45:06.1), all finished the race as the team qualified for 529 points and a 16th place team finish.

Williams College also took home the team title on the Men's side as they earned the top spot with a score of 54.

Women's Results

Junior Samantha Molinari (Litchfield, N.H.) once again was the first Raider to cross the finish line as her time of 19:29.8 was good enough for an overall finish of 29th (28th place) amongst the 185 contestants. Junior Lauren Ferentino (Hudson, N.H.) was the next finisher for Rivier as she clocked in at 23:52.1 (161st finish/118th place) and senior Sarah Thieme (Middletown, R.I.) was next at 24:43.0 (168th finish/119th place). Senior Samantha Hilsman (Rehoboth, Mass.) crossed the line at 26:48.0 (173rd finish/122nd place) while freshmen Hayli Ruiter (Hudson, N.H.), 29:17.9 (181st place/126th place), and Alise Kaplan (Nashua, N.H.), 30:56.4 (183rd finish/127th place) rounded out the finishers for Rivier.

The Women's team finished with an overall score of 513 points which placed them 18th out of 19 teams. Williams College was the team winner with a score of 37, including four top-10 finishers.

Coming Up

The two teams will be back on the trails on October 19th as they compete in the Suffolk Invitational at Franklin Park in Boston, hosted by Suffolk University. The Women's race will begin at roughly 3:30pm with the Men starting at 4:30pm.