Men's Results | Women's Results

HOLMDEL, N.J. – Both Niagara cross country teams finished the 2014 MAAC Championships in tenth place on Friday at Holmdel Park.
 
"We knew going in that the course was going to the most challenging one we would have come across all year and that the times wouldn't be as quick as some of our previous meets," head coach Christine Kloiber said. "But even with that, we had more than a few athletes set personal bests which demonstrated that they were really dialed in at just the right time."

The men's team crossed the line in two main packs. The first was led by Tyler Van Leeuwen and his 27:05.18, which was three seconds faster than Nick Orlowski who came in at the 27:08.70 mark. Jordan Bender rounded out the first pack with a 27:19.23 finish. John Lenkiewicz and Ben Slate were the final two scorers for the Purple and White. They finished in 28:09.77 and 28:14.90, respectively.
 
Freddie Liederbach and Matt Pond also ran for Niagara and finished in 28:51.43 and 29:12.85, respectively.
 
The team finished with a 294 to finish ahead of St. Peter's (365) and Manhattan (279).
 
"The conference has become much more competitive in the past three years, and so even though we've improved tremendously over the past year, many other teams have done just the same," said Kloiber. "We were hoping to displace a couple of teams, and we came very close on the men's side (15 points behind 9th place), but had a few injuries crop up within the past couple of weeks which put a small dent into a couple of guys' fitness."
 
The women's team crossed the line in two packs of three. Brianna Malanga finished in 23:30.41 with Maggie Lawler finishing nine-seconds later at 23:39.21 (personal best), and Caroline Hampton at 23:54.02. The second pack came two minutes later and was led by Sam Sauer's 25:31.02 (personal best). She was followed by Emilee Welton at 25:33.86 and Kayla Murphy at 25:37.55 (personal best). Natalie Regan split the difference with a 25:00.10.
 
The team turned in a 278 team-score to finish ahead of St. Peter's (365) and behind Fairfield (208).    

"Overall, both the men and women outperformed where we were a year ago – just compare where our average finish times were in 2013 to 2014, and it speaks volume of how much these squads have developed," Kloiber said.