Keene State Cross Country had a markedly successful day on its only home meet of the season during the Keene State Invitational, held at the Owl Athletic Complex on Saturday, Oct. 3. Both teams, men’s and women’s cross country, finished in the top half of the field, fifth and ninth, respectively.
The men’s red race, an 8K, started at 12:30 p.m. Keene State finished fifth among the 31-team field, with a team score of 99 points and an average finish time of 25:39. Senior Tyler Bolaske took second place, finishing with a time of 24:49.2 and a mile time of just under five minutes at 4:59.7. Junior Nicholas Terranova also finished in the top ten, with a time of 25:24.8.
Bolaske said that while he hoped to place first, he was happy with how he ran. “I think for where I’m at in the season, where the team’s at in the season, I think I’m doing fine,” he said. “It didn’t quite work out for me [to get the win], but I’m happy where I’m at, and I feel like it’s only going to be up from here.”
At 11:20 a.m., the women’s red 6K race started, with 29 teams and 244 athletes competing. Keene State finished ninth among teams, with a team score of 326 and average time of 24:03. Junior Kallie Warner took fourth place with a race time of 22:10.2, averaging a mile time of 5:56.8. Warner was accompanied by two runners each from Bowdoin College and Williams College in the top five. Williams and Bowdoin also took first and second place in the team standings.
Warner said the race went well for her. “I went out with the front pack, [which I] wasn’t expecting,” Warner said. “So I decided to stick [with it] as long as I can. This meet didn’t matter as much as our upcoming meets, so there’s no point in me not trying to [win].”
Warner said the women’s cross country team had a good finish. “I would say we had a B plus, A minus race overall,” she said. “I know we can improve in the future meets coming up. I think our training is pretty rigorous right now, so the fact that we could pull this off today makes me excited to see what we can do in the future.”
Bolaske said that the future is looking bright for the Owls. “We have one more race before [Little East Conference Championships],” Bolaske said. “We’re going to try to do really great [in that race] to help our Nationals chances.”
Spectator Jay Vaccaro said that the race looked great. “This is my second year coming here. My son’s a sophomore [cross country runner], it’s a really good atmosphere. You can see a lot of the race, which I like. Most races are in the woods and I like the fact that you can see all of it here.”
Head Coach Dan Roark said that the women had a “really good” showing. “We were able to be right up there with the other [teams] in the LEC Conference,” he said. “It was a really competitive day and we’re very excited to see how things went. We had one [runner], Noelle Hisgen, who had a [personal record]; that was great to see. Any time you have a personal record, that’s great to see, she really battled that one out.”
Roark said he was pleased with the men’s race results. “We’ve had some really good competition on the men’s side, some really good results, and some guys had real breakthrough races,” said Roark. “[Sophomore] Andrew Klinedinst had a really good race, and obviously Tyler Bolaske got second overall. I think if we clean up a couple things in a couple weeks, we can beat some of these teams that we lost to this time.”
Roark said he is looking forward to the Little East Conference meet coming up. He said, “We have a big race in two weeks at Connecticut College. And then our conference meet two weeks from there. We’ve been in the poll, and in our region [we’re] top ten. I’m proud of my team and proud of the community and alumni and the support we’ve got at our home meet.”
Frank LeBlanc can be contacted at
fleblanc@kscequinox.com.
Noelle Hisgen is a senior member of the Equinox social media staff and had no part in the writing or editing of this article.
