Lehigh races at Chile Pepper XC Festival
Posted: October 14, 2006
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – With only two weeks until the Patriot League championship meet, Lehigh’s men’s and women’s cross country teams competed in their first meet away from the Goodman Campus on Saturday morning, racing in the Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival hosted by the University of Arkansas. Both teams faced top-notch competition, with the Mountain Hawk men competing against No. 2 Arkansas, No. 11 UTEP and No. 17 Alabama, while the women competed against No. 4 Arkansas, No. 20 Duke, No. 28 Texas Tech and No. 30 Virginia Tech. The men, who raced in their first 10K of the season, finished ninth out of 34 teams while the women placed 27th out of 44 teams.
Three Mountain Hawk men ran sub-31:00 and placed in the top-55. Senior Sean Swift led the way for the Mountain Hawks for the third race, finishing in a time of 30:33.4 and placing 39th. Classmate Victor Vientos followed closely behind as he crossed the line in 30:39.2 and placed 42nd. Senior Brendan Glover finished just under 31:00 with a time of 30:59.1 and a 52nd place finish. Also competing for Lehigh was senior Steve Rosinski (31:45.0, 92), junior Joe Kelly (32:00, 105) and sophomores Jonathan Wetzel (32:09.3, 114) and Dan DeWitt 932:10.2, 115).
Leading the women was sophomore Shannon Alejandro, who finished the 6K race in 22:24.5 and placed 86th overall. Senior Sarah Seiler came in second for the Mountain Hawks as she crossed the line in 23:09. Three Mountain Hawks finished within a span of ten seconds with finishes by freshman Kaitlin Grimm (23:26.6, 162nd), senior Carolyn House (23:31.3, 169th) and freshman Nicole Page (23:36.2, 173th). Rounding out the Mountain Hawks was sophomore Katie McClernand (23:43.9, 182nd) and freshman Jen Curran (23:56, 196th).
Lehigh will get a series of championship races started on October 28 with the Patriot League Championship meet at Colgate University. The women will start first with their race starting at 11:00 am. The men’s race will start at 12:00 pm.