The Massachusetts men’s cross country team traveled to Franklin Park in Boston on Saturday to race in the annual New England Championship invitational meet.
Looking to improve from their 28th place finish from last year, the Minutemen finished 15th out of the 39 participating schools. UMass accumulated 364 points, and finished ahead of American International, Boston College and UMass Lowell.
For the Minutemen, junior Ben Thomas led the pack for the fourth consecutive meet and finished 46th overall, completing the 8kilometer course in 25 minutes and 18.1 seconds, 25 seconds shy of his performance in the Paul Short Invitational on Oct. 4 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Redshirt senior co-captain Patrick McGowan placed second for UMass and 59th overall with a time of 25:24.6. All five runners who scored for the Minutemen placed in the top 100 out of a total of 262 runners, as sophomore Morgan Marlow ran a personal best 25:35.2 in his third place finish for UMass. Junior Ben Groleau and senior Richard Racz finished fourth and fifth for the Minutemen respectively, 85th and 97th overall.
UMass will have a couple of weeks off before its next invitational meet when it travels to Schenley Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Nov. 1 for the Atlantic 10 Conference Championship Invitational. UMass finished fourth in this meet last season out of 13 participating schools.
Marc JeanLouis can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @marc_jean93.
