Ben Wallis wins Bowdoin Invite for his second straight season-opening victory

(10/1/2013 10:52 AM) See more Photos     Full Results

For the second weekend in a row, the Jumbos made a trip north to Maine, this time to race in Brunswick at Bowdoin College. Resting eight of the top runners, the men still had plenty of quality performances and placed second as a team behind the meet host (who rested just their top two runners).

Conditions were not particularly fast on the hot early fall day, but that didn’t stop Ben Wallis ’14 from setting a mean early pace and separating himself from the rest of the field early in the race. He never looked back, winning in a time of 25:28, a full 30 seconds ahead of second place. The senior opened up his cross-country season with an individual victory for the second time in as many years, also earning him his second NESCAC runner of the week award.

As in the race last week, the men demonstrated their strength as a unit by packing together for the first couple of miles. While a relaxed early pace left them with a little too much space to be able to catch up to Bowdoin’s varsity group, the Jumbos moved well over the last two miles to secure spots 13 through 18 in team scoring. Marshall Pagano ‘15 and Colin McCrory ’15, both recovering from sickness that kept them out of the USM invite last weekend, came in together to place second and third for the men with times of 26:51 and 26:52.

Five more Jumbos finished within a half minute of Pagano, with Greg Hardy ’15 breaking the 27-minute barrier for the first time this season to finish fourth for the men. Rookie Bobby McLaughlin ’17 rounded out the scoring five, chopping over ten seconds off his 8K time from last week, as did his classmate Michael Caughron ’17. The Jumbos welcomed back Joe Poupard ’15 and Michael Curley ’16 to the race course, and Peter Lewis ’14, Sam Garfield ’15, and Joe St. Pierre ’15 all ran times at least half a minute faster than their first efforts this season.

The men will take this coming weekend off to stay close to home and get in a block of quality training. The Jumbos will return to action at the Open New England Championships on Saturday, October 12th, where the full squad will race for the first time this season. The Men’s Open 8K will run at 11:45 AM, with the Varsity race going off at 1:15 PM.


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