Oct. 11, 2009

Senior Haley Catarius (Marshfield, MA) placed 69th to lead the UMass Lowell women’s cross country team to 21st place at the New England Championship Saturday afternoon at Franklin Park.

UMass Lowell scored 645 points (69, 47, 113, 177, 189 – 197, 228) despite missing three of its top runners in juniors Lyra Clark (Nashua, NH) and Patricia Brice (Chelmsford, MA) and sophomore Katelyn Allen (Marshfield, MA).

Brown University won the team title with 130 points while Boston College placed second with 170. Dartmouth (201), MIT (217) and the University of New Hampshire (225) rounded out the top five.

The field drew 327 runners representing 49 Division I, II and III teams.

Catarius, who led a lineup of four freshmen, one sophomore and one junior, ran the 5K course in 19 minutes, 7 seconds while freshman Kelly Walton (Nahant, MA) placed 97th in 19:25.

Junior Sarah Bonomo (Tewksbury, MA) placed 113th in 19:36 while freshman Mary Hazen (Framingham, MA) finished 177th in 20:17; and freshman Nicole Skotz (Tewksbury, MA) 189th in 20:24 to complete UMass Lowell’s scoring effort.

Sophomore Ivory Farren (Tyngsboro, MA) placed 197th in 20:32 and freshman Gina Butler (Dracut, MA) took 228th in 20:58.

“Without Lyra, Tricia and Katelyn, this result says a lot about our young kids,” said UML head coach Gary Gardner. “Haley and Kelly ran fantastic and Sarah ran very well too.”

Corey Conner of the University of Maine won the individual title with a time of 17:36.

UMass Lowell enters the Plansky Invitational Saturday at Williams College.