Sept. 5, 2009

Junior Lyra Clark (Nashua, NH) placed second individually and led the UMass Lowell women’s cross country team to second place Saturday at the Keene State College Alumni Invitational.

The host Owls won both the men and women’s titles while UMass Lowell was the runner-up in both races.

Clark posted a time of 12:10 in the women’s two-mile road race, just one second behind Keene State’s Paige Mills, who won the individual title in 12:09.

Junior Sarah Bonomo (Tewksbury, MA) placed fifth in 12:27 while freshmen Nicole Skotz (Tewksbury, MA), Gina Butler (Dracut, MA) and Kelly Walton (Nahant, MA) placed seventh through ninth.

Skotz ran the course in 12:41 while Butler (12:43) and Walton (12:47) were close behind. Freshman Mary Hazen (Framingham, MA) placed 13th in 13:02.

Babson placed third while Fitchburg State took fourth. The race drew 57 runners.

On the men’s side, freshman Erik Dunn-Gaudet (Northampton, MA) placed seventh (12th among scoring runners) in the 5K race with a time of 16:59 while freshmen Brendan Devlin (Weston, MA) and Brenden Guinee (Salem, NH) placed ninth (15th) and 10th (16th), respectively, in 17:13 and 17:17.

Senior Jason O’Connell (Mansfield, MA) took 14th among scoring runners (23rd) in 17:35 while freshman Josh Pallazola (Yarmouthport, MA) placed 16th (30th) in 18:00 and freshman Zach Sylvestre (Gardner, MA) 17th (31st) in 18:01.

Both the UMass Lowell men and women enter the Bantam Invitational at Trinity College next Saturday.