Oct. 1, 2005

Fairfield Invitational Results

The Sacred Heart women's cross country team took home the top-spot at this afternoon's Fairfield University Invitational winning the race for the second-straight year and the seventh time in the last nine years. The Pioneers recorded their lowest point total (25) ever in winning the meet. The men came home third in the race, renamed the Victor Leeber, S.J. Invitational.

"The women ran a very solid race," commented head coach Christian Morrison. "With meets like the New England's and Northeast Conference Championship on the horizon we have bigger fish to fry, but this race tells me that we are progressing nicely towards our end-of-the-season goals."

For only the second time in school history, the women had two runners, junior Katie Duffy (Monroe, CT) and freshman Kathleen Henry (Basking Ridge, NJ) break 19:00 in the same cross country race. Today also marked the first time this season that SHU had five women under 20 minutes in the same race. The women placed five runners in front of Siena's and Fairfield's first finishers in the race.

Duffy, the individual winner in 2004, ran up against a very fast freshman from Hofstra, Mary Sullivan, who took top honors. Despite coming in second with at time of 18:37.7, Duffy beat her time from last year's race by 36 seconds and notched her fourth career top-five finish. She also recorded an 11 second personal best, which moved her from fourth to second on the Sacred Heart all-time list for cross country. She now trails only Katie Wrinkle, the 2003 Northeast Conference individual champion on the all-time list.

Henry turned in her second straight top-five finish with a time of 18:50.4 for third and beat her all-time personal best in cross country by 22 seconds. Her time also moved her to second on SHU's all-time freshman list, only one second behind Wrinkle's 18:49. She also moved to fifth on SHU's overall all-time list. Senior Erin Kulasewski (West Warwick, RI) had her first career top-five finish, and recorded a seven second personal best with a time of 19:39.1 (5th). Fellow senior Jenna Pisani (Vernon, NJ) finished seventh for the second year in a row wiht a time of 19:45.9, beating her time from last year's race by two seconds.

Junior Anne Duffy was running in fourth place, but she took a momentary wrong turn about a half-mile from the finish. It could have been a critical mistake because by the time she got back on the course she had fallen out of the top 10. Fortunately, she rallied over the last half mile to pass several Hofstra runners, move into eighth place, and seal the victory for the team wiht a time of 19:50.2.

Freshman Brooke Palmer (Portland, OR) finished in the varsity top-seven for the first time in her career, and became the 15th fastest freshman in school history with a time of 20:12.0, good for 13th. Grad student Terressa Howard (Meridan, CT) finished in the top-seven in all three of SHU's meets this season with a time of 20:52.8 (18th).

On the men's side, freshman Luis German (Southampton, CT) recorded the first top-10 finish of his career, and also ran a personal best by 50 seconds. His time of 27:32.1 was good for 9th and moved him into fourth on SHU's all-time freshman list for cross country, just ahead of senior Tyler Arnett (Clinton Corners, NY). He also became the 13th fastest performer overall in SHU history. Arnett recorded a seasonal best time of 28:03.5 (14th) and sophomore Stephen Zito (Guilford, CT) improved on his personal best by 1:04 wiht a clocking of 28:06.9 (15th).

Freshman Joseph Palma (Gladstone, NJ) recorded a personal best by 1:26 and became the 16th fastest freshman in school history. He finished 17th wiht a time of 28:11.6. Freshman John Kenworthy (Gloversville, NY) ran an 18 second personal best with a time of 28:40.5 (22nd), freshman David Jones (Charlton, NY) ran a 16 second personal best at 28:58.0 (26th), and junior Robert McDermott (Lindenhurst, NY) rounded out the men's top-seven with a seasonal best performance of 29:23.1 in 30th.