St. Lawrence seeking 14th straight Liberty League Women’s Cross Country title
The St. Lawrence University women’s cross country team will be seeking its 14th straight Liberty League Championship as all eight league teams compete for the title on Saturday, October 31. The Saints are hosting this weekend’s championship as the races will be held on the Hoffman Cross Country Course in Canton, N.Y. The meet will be begin with the 6,000-meter women’s race at noon and conclude with the 8,000-meter men’s championship at 1:00 p.m.
Live updates will be posted throughout the afternoon via Twitter (@LLAthletics) and final results will be posted to
http://www.tfrrs.org, as well as the Liberty League website, shortly following the meet.
St. Lawrence is currently ranked third in the NCAA Atlantic Region and eighteenth nationally, as the team has won 13 consecutive Liberty League team titles. This season, the Saints captured the Saratoga Invitational and their own Ronald C. Hoffman Invitational. They also placed second at the Geneseo Pre-Regional Invitational and third in the NYSCTC Championship.
In the 2014 Liberty League championship, five of the top ten finishers were St. Lawrence runners including All-Americans sophomore Meghan Kellogg and senior Lisa Grohn. Both return this season as Kellogg leads the Saints with five individual titles including first-place honors in a 414-runner field at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh AAE Pre-National Invitational. Not to be outdone, Grohn has five top-ten finishes of her own this year, highlighted by a second-place showing at the Pre-Regional.
RIT is poised to make a run for its first-ever Liberty League team title this weekend as the Tigers placed sixth at the AAE Invitational (269 points) besting St. Lawrence (270 points) by one as the Saints took seventh, earlier this season. The Tigers are ranked second in the NCAA Atlantic Region and seventeenth nationally, as they return six of their top-seven runners from a year ago with Emma Jones, who placed fifth last year, at the helm. Jones had two top-five finishes this year, highlighted by fourth place at the Pre-Regional. Kaylin Beiter, Becky Greiner, Alicia Suthpin and Stephanie Milici, who placed among the top-25 in 2014’s championship are also back for RIT.
Individually, RPI junior Shannon Trant and sophomore Jaime Lord are having strong campaigns for the Engineers as both have five top-ten finishes in five races, this season. Last year, Trant placed eighth in the championship and Lord was 20th. As a team, the Engineers are currenlty ranked 20th nationally and 5th in the NCAA Atlantic Region as they return six of their seven top runners from a year ago.
Senior Ava Farrell paces the 2015 Vassar women's team, who placed third at last year's championship. She has led the Brewers with two top-ten finishes this season. Clarkson University freshman Sarah Duclos, two-time Liberty League Rookie of the Week, is having a successful first year, most recently finishing first in the annual Cross Country Only Championship.