2010 New England Alliance Men’s Cross Country Championships

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Hosted By Worcester State University

Moore State Park, Paxton, Massachusetts

PAXTON, Mass. --  Keene State College captured the team title at the 14^th Annual New England Alliance Men’s Cross Country Championships on Saturday morning at Moore State Park, as the Owls also won their second straight and fourth overall Little East Conference crown.

The Owls had three of the top four runners in the event to post a team score of 36 points in outdistancing runner-up Southern Maine’s score of 65 points for both the Alliance and Little East titles.  Westfield State and UMass Dartmouth followed in third and fourth places, respectively, with team scores of 117 and 123 points, while Bridgewater State was fifth in the final standings with a team score of 141 points in the event that combines competition between the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference and the Little East Conference.

Salem State junior Alex Gomes (Peabody, Mass.) followed up his winning performance in last week’s MASCAC Championships by taking top individual honors in the New England Alliance Championships, as he covered the 8K layout in a time of 25:59.9 to best Keene State senior Eric MacKnight (Newtown, Conn.) by eight seconds in the runner-up spot.  Keene State junior Kevin Hoyt (Newtown, Conn.) and senior Tim Pipp (Keene, N.H.) followed in third and fourth place, respectively, with times of 26:19.5 and 26:22.1, while the Fitchburg State tandem of senior Matt Spano (Gardner, Mass.) and junior Chris Kibler (Bath, Maine) were next in fifth and sixth place, respectively, with times of 26:40.9 and 26:52.2.  UMass Dartmouth senior Nick Santoro (Shrewsbury, Mass.) finished seventh with a time of 26:54.2, while Southern Maine junior Erich Neuts (Portland, Maine) and sophomore Dylan Lajoie (Lewiston, Maine) sandwiched Bridgewater State sophomore Stephen Wahome’s (Lowell, Mass.) in placing eighth and 10^th, respectively, with times of 27:00.7 and 27:14.8, as Wahome clocked in with a ninth place time of 27:12.8.

Fitchburg State (149), Rhode Island College (201), Eastern Connecticut (218), Massachusetts Maritime (243) and Salem State (254) rounded out the top 10 team scores in the New England Alliance, followed respectively by Worcester State (306), MCLA (374) and UMass Boston (395). 

Massachusetts Maritime was paced by senior all-MASCAC performer Patrick Dannaher (Arlington, Va.), who finished 28^th individually with a time of 28:19.0, while fellow senior Paul Matz (Plainville, Mass.) was next in 47^th place with a time of 28:56.9.  Freshmen Brent Schouler (Hyannis, Mass.) and Steven Migridichian (Shrewsbury, Mass.) followed in 77^th and 86^th place, respectively, with times of 30:22.7 and 30:33.7, while senior Brian Maniglia (Pennsville, N.J.) rounded out the scoring with a 90^th place time of 30:45.8 for the Buccaneers, who will compete at the 2010 NCAA New England Regionals on Saturday, November 13^th in Williamstown, Mass. beginning at 11:00 a.m.