Alexis Bean and her St. John’s University Women’s Cross Country teammates traveled to Buffalo, N.Y. to compete in the NCAA Division 1 Northeast Regional Cross Country Championships.
St. John’s University placed 29th out of the 36 competing teams. The team was without sophomore Chelsea Trant who had finished every race of 2011 in the team’s top-five.
“We were disappointed to not have our full team available and healthy for the regional,” said head cross country coach Jim Hurt. “We continued to move up in the team standings but missed hitting our best efforts which we hope to do at next week’s ECAC Championships.”
Nicole Cocozza placed in the top-100 overall finishing 94th out of 243 with a time of 22:52.2 for the race. The senior runner finished just seven seconds off her previous career best 6K time which she set at last week’s BIG EAST Championships. Junior Michelle Duffy crossed the finish line second for the Red Storm as she continues to build on her first full cross country season after battling injuries the past two years. Her time of 24:00.6 also narrowly missed a personal-best mark.
Sophomore Angela Jarvela ran her best race of the season, as she clocked in at 24:07.0 on the 6K course. Her third-place team finish is the best ranking of her Red Storm career. Senior Samantha Meyerhoff finished with a time of 24:08.8 placing her fourth for STJ. Fellow senior Aryon Trujillo rounded out the top five with a time of 25:22.2; achieving her third top-five finish of 2011. Junior Bean trailed just behind the St. John’s pack with a final time of 25:46.6 to finish 227th.
Abbey D’Agostino of Dartmouth was the individual overall champion with a time of 20:25.3. Syracuse took home the NCAA Northeast Regional Championship as all their qualifying runners placed in the top-50.
