Sept. 4, 2010
Results 
The Siena men's and women's cross country teams both finished third in the opening meet of the season Saturday morning at the Marist Invitational at Bowdoin Park in Wappingers Falls, N.Y. Both teams ran without their freshmen because of orientation at the College. Ian Donnelly led the men's team and Lia Gizzarelli paced the women while John Farley and Meghan Yi saw big improvements from last season.
"Today was a solid start to our season," head coach Alison Wade said. "We had the opportunity to race on a challenging course against some of the top teams in the MAAC. Our freshmen were required to stay on campus for freshman orientation, so this was a nice opportunity to see how far last year's team has come."
Marist won the meet in both the men's and women's races, Fairfield finished second and Saint Peter's came in fourth.
Donnelly, who led the Saints in every race he competed in last season, finished 27th overall (17:33). Farley (33rd-17:44), David Ellsworth (36th-18:00), Davin Piispanen (39th-18:09), Phil Hartshorn (47th-20:02), Jonathan Duncan (48th-20:35) and John Daley (51st-21:56) rounded out the men's team.
Gizzarelli led the women's team and finished 16th overall (21:48). Finishing behind Gizzarelli were Chrissy DelSanto (21st-22:09), Yi (32nd-22:36), Christy Bak (38th-23:22), Breanna Zych (40th-23:38), Jessica Morelli (44th-24:15), Casey Morelli (48th-25:28), Lauren Peloso (49th-26:23) and Kristyn Reisert (50th-27:34).
In addition to all the freshmen, Brina Seguine, one of the women's team's top runners did not compete.
"I am excited about the spirit of our teams this year," Wade said. "I am now beginning to see the type of behavior and attitudes in these teams that are present on championship teams. The improvements in times and performances will come, but the first step for us was changing the behavior and attitudes. This group has done an excellent job with that in the past year, and we are only going to improve from here on in."
The Saints return to action next Saturday in the Binghamton Invitational.
