Nov. 20, 2009

The NCAA Cross Country Championship has become a fixture on the UMass Lowell schedules each year.

A national championship might be too far a stretch for the UMass Lowell men, who are currently No. 8 in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Division II Poll. But a top 10 finish is entirely possible.

For the women, who debuted in the USTFCCCA poll at No. 25 two weeks ago, finishing in the teens is a realistic goal.

The NCAA Division II Cross Country Championship is slated for Saturday at Southern Indiana University in Evansville, IN. The UMass Lowell men are making their 10th straight appearance while the women are enjoying their seventh successive trip.

The women’s race is slated for 1:00 while the men run at 2:00 Eastern Time.

The River Hawk men, fresh off their seventh NCAA East Region Championship in nine years on Nov. 8, have twice broken the top 10 at the NCAAs over the last seven years – placing sixth in 2003 and 10th in 2004 –and look to return among the elite after consecutive 13th-place showings the last two years.

“If we run well we can be in the top 10. If we’re average, we’ll finish in the top 13,” said Head Coach Gary Gardner. “We told our kids in the team meeting that they need to draw from what they did in the East Region Championship. They just have to run the same way, and if we do, we’ll be somewhere in the top 10.”

UMass Lowell is led by junior Angus MacDonald (Methuen, MA), the sole runner from last year’s squad who placed third at the regional; and senior Tim Guerin (Auburn, MA), who placed fifth.

The UMass Lowell women placed 22nd last year and peaked with a 17th-place finish in 2005. Junior Lyra Clark (Nashua, NH) led UMass Lowell at the regional (seventh) while junior Sarah Bonomo (Tewksbury, MA) placed 10th.

“If we can finish between18-20, I’ll be really pleased,” Gardner noted. “We’re running three freshmen, and Lyra is only about 80 percent. It’s a different situation from the men. But I want them to really get after it, and not just be happy that they’re here.”

The men’s 10K course and the women’s 6K course, said Gardner, are mindful of the courses at Williams College, where the River Hawks ran on Sept. 26: full of hills and drops.

“That’s why we ran at Williams this year,” Gardner said. “We wanted a course as close to that as we could find. This course is probably the toughest we’ve run all year.”

“If we run smart, that will help us,” Gardner said. “It’s all about the first 10 minutes. If we run smart over the first 10 minutes, and we don’t get out too fast, we’ll do well.”