Women's Cross Country Places Fifth at River Hawk Invitational
NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. – Led by two top-20 finishes by senior Anne Bajor (Methuen, Mass.) and freshman Kerry Phelan (Peabody, Mass.), the Merrimack women's cross country team raced to a fifth-place finish out of eight teams on Saturday afternoon at the River Hawk Invitational hosted by UMass-Lowell.
Both Bajor and Phelan, two important cogs in a lineup featuring a blend of veterans and promising upperclassmen, wound up placing within the top-20 finishers, as the former earned a 12th-place finish and the latter finished in 14th overall.
Adelphi, Saint Rose, Southern Connecticut and UMass-Lowell all finished ahead of the Warriors to round out the top four in team scoring, while Nyack College, Wilmington University and Le Moyne rounded out the sixth through eighth slots in the eight-team field.
Bajor led the Warriors with a time of 19:23, just edging Phelan's final time of 19:24. Behind them, sophomore Kelsey Grimmer (Shelton, Conn.) notched a 22nd-place finish with a time of 19:46, while senior Christina Fisher (Mansfield Center, Conn.) wound up just inside the top 30, racing to a time of 20:10 to finish in 28th place.
Finally, freshman Kristin Schmidt (Athens, N.Y.) rounded out the group of Merrimack scorers with a time of 20:23, finishing in 34th overall out of 74 participants.
"Overall, good race for our girls, even though I was hoping we'd do a little bit better," head coach Chris Cameron said afterward. "What we really need to work on is tightening the gap between our No. 1 runner and our No. 5 runner, and that'll be something we'll keep working on as the season progresses."
Despite a number of nagging injuries, the Warriors still managed to put up impressive results on the track, and once the full team gets its legs back, Merrimack should continue to rise up the leader board.
Next up, the Warriors will participate in the Rivier College Invitational on Friday, Sept. 21.
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