The cross country team had an excellent weekend, with the women winning their half of the 20th Annual Cardinal Cross Country Classic. The men placed second in their event.
Scoring for the event was based on the top five finishers for each team. The Engineers’ top five women all finished in 12th place or better overall, giving Rensselaer an easy victory over the 10 other teams competing.
Senior Katie Roden led all RPI runners, finishing the five-kilometer race in 18:39, good for a third-place finish. Kate Adams placed fifth overall with a time of 19:16. Rounding out the top five for the Engineers were Jesslyn Kennedy, Cara O’Toole, and Allyson Soja, who all finished within two seconds of each other—they finished in 10th through 12th places, respectively.
On the men’s side, the host Plattsburgh State team turned in a dominant performance, with three of the top four finishers. The Rensselaer men finished just behind them, beating out the eight other men’s squads at the meet.
The top runner for the Engineers was junior Duane Crammond, who finished in fifth place overall with a time of 21:03 for the four-mile course. Mark Jensenius scored a 10th place finish, completing the race in 21:21, followed closely by John Bonnett in 12th at the 21:27 mark. Justin Jablonowski and Robert Baniak were the other runners scoring for RPI, with respective times of 21:59 and 22:34.
In a pre-season poll, the women’s team was ranked fifth in the Atlantic Region and the men’s team was ranked sixth. More performances like this weekend’s will improve those rankings in a hurry.
