Blue XC Places Four in Top-20, Finishes Tied for 2nd at Bates College Invitational
NEW GLOUCESTER, Maine– Led by a third place finish from junior Mary Keenan (Boerne, Texas) Wellesley College cross country finished in a tie for second place at the 2015 Bates College Invitational at Pineland Farms in New Gloucester, Maine.
The Blue tied with host Bates (240), with both teams trailing first place Tufts (122). Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) finished in fourth (254) in the four-team field.
Keenan turned in a time of 18:40.1, trailing only a pair of runners from Tufts, to finish just 0:08.4 off the first place pace.
First year Mary Naas (St. Paul, Minn.) was next across the line for the Blue, earning 12th place at 19:07.8. Naas was followed seconds later by Sonja Cwik (La Canada, Calif.), as the junior recorded a time of 19:14.3 to finish in 14th place. Senior Sharon Ng (Sunnyvale, Calif.) gave the Blue four top-20 finishes with her time of 19:26.7.
The Blue added three more in the top-30, as the scoring for the event used the totals of the first ten runners to cross the line for each team. Senior Priyanka Fouda (Wellesley, Mass.) clocked in at 19:41.4 to take 26th, while classmate Carolyn Chelius (Haddonfield, N.J.) and junior Edie Sharon (Winchester, Mass.) took 28th and 30th with times of 6:21.4 and 6:24.6, respectively.
Junior Sara Vannah (Amherst, Mass.), sophomore Taylor Fortnam (Portola Valley, Calif.) and senior Alessandra Gavin (Annapolis, Md.) rounded out the scoring runners for the Blue, taking 35th (20:15.0), 38th (20:17.8) and 39th (20:18.6).
Wellesley will hit the road again next weekend, traveling across the country for the Roy Griak Invitational, hosted by the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota.