Nov. 7, 2009

If there is such a thing as a home-away-from-home course advantage in cross country, the UMass Lowell men’s and women’s cross country teams have it at Franklin Park.

UMass Lowell is looking for repeat titles Sunday as it gears for the NCAA East Region Cross Country Championship.

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The River Hawk men have won the event in six of the last eight years while the women won their second crown in four years in 2008.

Ranked No. 10 in the latest USTFCCCA Division II Poll, the UMass Lowell men are looking for their second trophy of the season after winning the New England Championship at Franklin Park for the second straight year and third time in four years.

“I think the familiarity of the course definitely helps us,” said UML head coach Gary Gardner. “I think it’s a course on which we’ve historically run well and the kids expect to do well. Whenever the kids have high expectations, it usually turns out well.”

The women’s race is slated for 1:30 while the men start at 2:30. The top two teams and top two individual runners (apart from the top two teams) will move on to the NCAA Championship in Evansville, IN, Saturday Nov. 21.

Gardner pointed out that UMass Lowell has only one men’s athlete running tomorrow – junior Angus MacDonald (Methuen, MA) – who ran in the 2008 NCAA East Region Championship. But, he feels, the River Hawks have the depth for a repeat title.

On the women’s side, the River Hawks return three from last year’s title-winning team in junior Lyra Clark (Nashua, NH), senior Haley Catarius (Marshfield, MA) and junior Sarah Bonomo (Tewksbury, MA), though Bonomo might be doubtful due to an upper respiratory infection.

“In the past, we’ve always had five good runners when we’ve gone to our big meets,” he noted. “One of the things we have concentrated on is building some depth so that we have 8-10 runners who we’ve been able to call on. We still have a very good chance to win both races tomorrow.”

The UMass Lowell men have advanced to nine straight NCAA Championships while the women have a string of six straight NCAA appearances.

Both the UMass Lowell men and women also look to improve upon second-place showings at the NE-10 Championship on Oct. 25, which saw Stonehill capture both titles.

The men hope to regain the sterling form that saw them capture the New England Championship on Oct. 10, in which five runners placed in the top 31 places and were separated by only 31 seconds. MacDonald (eighth, 24:55) led the way while senior Tim Guerin (Auburn, MA) (ninth, 24:58) was close behind.

UMass Lowell will be missing sophomore Jeff Veiga (Lowell, MA), who is suffering from strep throat.

On the women’s side, Clark and Catarius have been the most consistent runners for the River Hawks, placing third and sixth, respectively, in 18:47.6 and 19:06.1 at the NE-10 Championship.

“We might have four freshmen women running tomorrow,” Gardner said. “It will be interesting to see how they react. But they’ve had a good year, particularly in the last six weeks. They have gotten a lot better.”