Results

Siena Cross Country continued to rewrite the program's record book with another strong performance in an already vastly improved season at the NCAA Northeast Regional Championships at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx Friday. The men's top three finishers ran the three fastest NCAA Regionals times in program history, while women's junior captain Christie MacFarlane broke her own program record in the 6K by 22 seconds.

Both teams recorded their highest finishes at the NCAA Regionals in nearly a decade. The men finished 28th of 39 teams to post their first top-30 finish since 2005, while the women recorded their best placement since 2007 in coming in 32nd in the 40-team women's field.

"Overall, today was a good but not great day,' said head coach John Kenworthy. "We had some great individual performances, but the beauty (or the pain) of cross country is that each runner carries points equally, so we have to continue to strive to find ways to make five to seven runners show their best on the same day. There is more there, but we did make some good steps up in the region as a team nonetheless. The message leaving today was that we have one more week, and one more race, to walk out of this season on our highest note, a note that we probably haven't quite hit yet. It's exciting to see the progress of this program and to also see how much more we've got in us."

Siena's three Nick's - junior captain Nick Miller, senior captain Nick Grudev and sophomore Nick Cornine - ran the fourth, fifth and sixth fastest 10K times in program history. Only Siena legend Tom Dalton's times at the 1978, 1979 and 1980 NCAA Division I Championships were faster.

"The men got a lot of positive things done today," added Kenworthy. "Moving up three spots doesn't seem like a lot, and it's not the top-25 finish we were aiming for, but for a group that hasn't put together a solid regional performance maybe ever, this was a great building block and confidence booster that we can run competitive 10K races. The hope is that we can build on this performance next weekend at the Ic4A meet, and again through the spring, so that next fall we make another jump into the heart of the field."

Miller led the way with a time of 32:32.97, followed closely by Grudev (32:37.44) and Cornine (32:53.65) as the men finished sixth of the eight competing MAAC squads. The Saints ran an average of nearly a minute faster per runner from last year and the team's fifth place scorer finished higher than the Saints top runner at the event last year.

On the women's side, MacFarlane broke her previous program 6K record of 22:41 set at the Paul Short Invitational on Oct. 4 with a new record time of 22:19. Both MacFarlane and MAAC All-Tournament Team selection Shannon Bauer ran the two fastest 6K times on the Van Cortlandt Park Course in program history as Bauer finished in 23:09.89. Michelle Milton had held the record of 23:11 - nearly a full minute slower than MacFarlane's record setting performance - which she set during the 2000 season.

"Today was just Christie's day," commented Kenworthy. "The course was wet, the grass was soft, and the wind was blowing. All of those things are elements that she thrives in. The rest of the group probably suffered a little from the weather. That's not to say they ran poorly, they all had solid days, but we just aren't content with those types of races anymore. I'm definitely proud of how we're now in a place where this team can feel like they left a little bit out there and still walk away with our highest finish in seven years. That shows a lot about how far we've come."

Sophomore Kelly Pasko (23:18.02) and freshman Dominica Bleichert (23:35.13), ran in a tight pack along with Bauer with Pasko's time ranking as the fifth fastest time run by a Siena woman on the Van Cortlandt Park 6K course.

The Saints return to Van Cortlandt Park Saturday for the ECAC/IC4A Championships.