Emmanuel Captures GNAC Men's & Women's Cross Country Championship

STANDISH, Maine - Both, the Emmanuel College Men's and Women's Cross Country Teams, won Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Championships on Saturday afternoon on the campus of Saint Joseph's College in Maine. The pair of championships mark Emmanuel's first-ever GNAC Cross Country team titles. The Saints' victory in the men's meet also marks Emmanuel's first-ever men's team championship in any sport. Further, this is the first time Emmanuel has ever won multiple championships in a single season.

Featuring four of the top 10 individual finishers in the women's 5k, the Saints cruised to the crown with 48 team points.  Emmanuel finished securely ahead of the host Saint Joseph's College Monks (66 points), which finished as the team runner-up, despite placing the top three individual participants.  Overall, 12 teams and 114 runners competed in the women's championship.

Simmons College placed third with 69 points, Norwich University tallied 104 points and finished fourth and Johnson & Wales University rounded out the top five competing institutions with 108 points on the afternoon.

Saint Joseph's junior Amber Dostie (Standish, Maine) won the conference race for the third-consecutive season after touring the course in 20:32 and was closely followed by a pair of teammates. Monks' sophomore Lauren Rabideau (Ballston Spa, N.Y.), the 2012 GNAC Rookie of the Year, was six seconds off the pace and was the runner-up and St. Joe's junior Heather Eaton (Lincolnville, Maine) placed third with a 20:53 effort.

Closing out the top five were Johnson & Wales junior Joanne Mumbey (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.), who was fourth with a 21:04 time, and Norwich freshman Chapel Guarnieri (Pepperell, Mass.), who notched a fifth-place finish with a 21:10 performance.

Four of the following five runners hailed from Emmanuel, as senior Molly Metivier (Keene, N.H.) was sixth, senior Meaghan Mauer (South Hadley, Mass.) finished seventh, junior Chloe Egan (Burlington, Vt.) placed eighth and sophomore Janelle Winship (Prospect, Maine) raced to a 10th-place finish.  The fifth scoring runner for the Saints was freshman Olivia Wakefield (Easton, Mass.), who placed 17 overall with her personal best time of 22:16.

Guarnieri, who had already established herself as one of the top newcomers in the conference this fall with several weekly honors to her name, claimed GNAC Women's Cross Country Rookie of the Year accolades as the top-finishing first-year runner in the conference championship meet.

With the individual victory, Dostie becomes the first women's runner in GNAC history to win the conference championship on three occasions.

Lasell College (6th, 187 points), Rivier University (7th, 196), Anna Maria College (8th, 214), University of Saint Joseph (9th, 225), Mount Ida College (10th, 301) and Albertus Magnus College (11th, 337) also competed in the 2013 GNAC Championship. Suffolk University featured runners in the event but did not place as a team.

Emmanuel then completed the sweep, as the Saints raced to a team championship in the men's 8k event.  With all five scorers, including the individual winner, finishing in the top 16 overall, Emmanuel totaled 49 team points to finish atop a highly-competitive field.   Just 19 points separated the winner from the fourth-place finisher in the conference race. Saint Joseph's College was the runner-up with 57 points. Norwich University placed third with 62 points and Johnson & Wales University was fourth with 68 points.

Lasell College finished fifth with 119 points.  Mount Ida College raced to a sixth-place finish with 198 points and Albertus Magnus College tallied 202 points to round out the competitors in the men's event.

Emmanuel sophomore Sean Colford (Epping, N.H.) toured the 8K course in 27:49 to claim the individual title, while Saint Joseph's freshman Cody Vachon (Shapleigh, Maine) finished as the runner-up with a 28:14 effort. A pair of Johnson & Wales runners followed, as Adam Sachs (Ellicott City, Md.) and Brian Dinan (Geneva, N.Y.) placed third (28:16) and fourth (28:18), respectively, and Emmanuel freshman Marco Caserta (Topsfield, Mass.) was fifth with a 28:22 time.

Norwich freshman Robert Nichols (Eliot, Maine) placed sixth (28:23), Saint Joseph's senor Faisal Abdillahi (Lewiston, Maine) finished seventh (29:02), Lasell sophomore Alex Weselcouch (East Haddam, Conn.) raced to an eighth-place (29:12) finish and Norwich sophomore Adam Miller (Claremont, N.H.) was ninth (29:15). Norwich freshman Logan Morton (Otis, Mass.) also claimed All-Conference honors – bestowed upon each of the top-10 finishers – by placing 10th with a 29:18 effort.

With the individual victory, Colford becomes the first Emmanuel College runner to earn GNAC Men's Cross Country Runner of the Year accolades.  The Saints got an individual championship on the women's side back in 2008, when Cat Lariviere took home the title on the same Saint Joseph's College course.

The Saints ran the men's race strong and as a pack.  Following Colford and Caserta for the Saints was senior Nate Bruno (Lenox, Mass.) and freshman Ian Chamenko (Beacon Falls, Conn.), who each crossed the line in 29:36 to place 13th and 14th, respectively.  Junior Christopher Connelly (Quincy, Mass.) raced to a 16th place finish, just one second off of Bruno and Chamenko to score fifth for the Saints.

Emmanuel's Men's and Women's Cross Country Teams will compete again next Saturday, November 9, when the Saints travel to Bristol, Rhode Island for the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division III Championship.  Emmanuel will also compete the following weekend, when the Saints compete in the NCAA Division III Regionals.

2013 WOMEN'S CROSS COUNTRY ALL-CONFERENCE TEAM:

Amber Dostie, Saint Joseph's

Lauren Rabideau, Saint Joseph's

Heather Eaton, Saint Joseph's

Joanne Mumbey, Johnson & Wales

Chapel Guarnieri, Norwich

Molly Metivier, Emmanuel

Meaghan Mauer, Emmanuel

Chloe Egan, Emmanuel

Shelly Potter, Simmons

Janelle Winship, Emmanuel

2013 GNAC Runner of the Year: Amber Dostie, Saint Joseph's

2013 GNAC Rookie of the Year: Chapel Guarnieri, Norwich

2013 GNAC Coach of the Year: Ray Putnam, Saint Joseph's

2013 MEN'S CROSS COUNTRY ALL-CONFERENCE TEAM:

Sean Colford, Emmanuel

Cody Vachon, Saint Joseph's

Adam Sachs, Johnson & Wales

Brian Dinan, Johnson & Wales

Marco Caserta, Emmanuel

Robert Nichols, Norwich

Faisal Abdillahi, Saint Joseph's

Alex Weselcouch, Lasell

Adam Miller, Norwich

Logan Morton, Norwich

2013 GNAC Runner of the Year: Sean Colford, Emmanuel

2013 GNAC Rookie of the Year: Cody Vachon, Saint Joseph's

2013 GNAC Coach of the Year: Nick Cooper, Norwich

- Release courtesy of Saint Joseph's College Sports Information