Led by a top-ten finish from second-year co-captain Hannah O’Connor, the University of Rhode Island women’s cross country team finished third at the annual New England Championships over the weekend – their best result since 2001.
Traveling to Boston without two of their top three finishers from last weekend’s Paul Short Invitational, fourth-year Molly Sabia and third-year Sofia Piccone, the team still boasted seven top-50 finishes, including a pair of finishes inside top 20. 18 other schools competed at the event.
O’Connor was the top finisher for the Rams on the day, crossing the finish line eighth in 18:44, just one second ahead of Dartmouth’s Esme Huh. The result matched her personal career-best time.
“Hannah O’Connor had an outstanding race,” URI head coach Laurie Feit-Melnick said. “She ran really well, and she closed really well, she passed a lot of people in the last mile…It was a very positive showing, the women that ran this past weekend competed well and it was good timing.”
Not far behind O’Connor was URI’s only other top-20 finisher, fifth-year Daniella Napoli, who finished 19th in 19:08. Finishing just outside the top 20 was third-year Erin Hurley, who finished 21st in 19:14.
Despite the absence of both Sabia and Piccone, Feit-Melnick said that the team’s mentality going into the race remained unchanged.
“Our philosophy is [that] you give 100% on the given day, obviously you can’t control certain things so you try to control what you can,” Feit-Melnick said. “We had a big trip the weekend before…it can be a little tiring, two weekends in a row running, it’s sometimes nicer if you can take a weekend off.”
The other four top-50 finishers for the Rams included second-year Leyla Kvaternick (37th – 19:36), fourth-year Sophia Dimuccio (38th – 19:38), third-year Lindsay Turgeon (41st – 19:41) and second-year Olivia Skapczynski (45th – 19:51). While O’Connor’s performance led the group, she stressed the importance of the result from a team perspective.
“Considering we’re missing two of our top girls who typically finish between one and three…we didn’t have crazy expectations with all the injuries and sickness going on, but we ended up doing well,” O’Connor said. “Everyone went out hard in the beginning of the race and we just stuck with each other and tried to hold our spot as much as we could, and it ended up working out.”
One of the major positives out of the weekend was the team’s ability to stick together throughout the race, while still pushing their best possible individual times, according to both O’Connor and Feit-Melnick.
“A big team goal of ours was to keep our pack tight,” O’Connor said. “We typically want our top seven girls to be within a minute of each other, and we really tried to close that range on Saturday. We did a pretty good job of it.”
The Rams fell only six seconds short of the one-minute separation, with all seven top-50 finishers crossing the finish line within between 18:44 and 19:51.
With three weeks until their next meet, the Atlantic 10 Championships at the end of the month, the third-place finish was vitally important for the team’s mentality, according to Feit-Melnick.
“This is a very positive confidence booster,” Feit-Melnick said. “We’re still working on our tight tem pack and we need to keep moving that tight team pack up, but it was just very exciting to be recognized as a top three team.”
Next up for the Rams, they will hit the road to Cedarville, Ohio for A-10 Championships, which are set for Oct. 28 at 10 a.m.