Through the rain and mud on Saturday, the Rensselaer cross country team competed in their only home meet of the season at Saratoga Spa State Park. Both the women and the men ran strong races on one of their favorite courses to place fourth with identical team scores of 115 points.
The women’s team had a spectacular performance, since all nine team members achieved their best times of the season. Everyone improved their times by at least 51 seconds on the Saratoga 5K course.
The team was once again led by Rebecca Rosenberg-Beran, who finished sixth with a time of 18:41. Following Rosenberg-Beran with times under 20 minutes came junior Cara O’Toole in 19:42 for 24th place, freshman Cate McCullough in 19:51 for 30th place, and junior Claire Lears in 19:54 for 33rd place. Rounding out RPI’s top five was junior Jess Orsak, placing 37th with a time of 20:15.
The men also had an outstanding performance with eleven of the team members running season’s best times on the 8K course. Junior Doug Dukes led the team for the second time by finishing in 16th place in 26:50.
The second and third runners for Rensselaer, finishing only a second apart in 27:08 and 27:09, were senior Duane Crammond in 21st place and sophomore Bob Baniak in 22nd place. Next to finish was freshman John Evans in 28th place with a time of 27:27 and Mark Jensenius in 30th place, to round out the top five with a time of 27:36.
The entire team is proud of their excellent performance during the last meet before their post-season, which will begin following a weekend of rest.
The upcoming meets on November 9 and November 16 include the NYSCTC State Championships in Oswego, NY and the NCAA Atlantic Regional Championship at Washington Crossing State Park in New Jersey.
