Shupirates.com
Seton Hall’s women’s and men’s cross country teams started the season off with second and third-place finishes.
Freshman Christiana Rutkowski led the women’s cross country team to a second place finish at the 2014 Monmouth XC Kick-Off. Rutkowski placed a time of 15:10.3, finishing fourth among Division I runners and fifth overall. Senior Mary Migton was right behind her with a time of 15:12.4, finishing fifth among Division I runners and sixth overall in the 4K race.
Junior Amanda Quaglia finished with the third-best time for SHU at 15.48.4, taking 15th overall.
Blackburn (15:53.3) and Seach (15:53.9) were the last of the scoring group for the Pirates, coming in at 19th and 20th, respectively.
Junior Stephanie Benko took the individual title, coming in at a time of 14:48.7.
Host Monmouth won the team title with seven of their runners finishing in the top-ten, led by freshman Daniel Leavitt with a time of 14:59.8.
Coming off a successful spring, senior Kevin Walsh charged the Pirates. Walsh finished 12th among Division I runners in the 6k race with a time of 19:53.2. Finishing 14th was freshman Jeff Larson posting a time of 19:56.3.
The next Pirate to finish was freshman Bryant Cordova with a time of 20:02.2, good for 16th and 3rd overall for the team.
The last of the scoring group for the Pirates consisted of senior John Walsh and freshman Jacob Simon. Walsh posted a time of 20:10.9, finishing 18th. Simon finished right behind him with a time of 20:13.2, finishing 19th.
Senior Alex Leight of Monmouth took the individual title first with a time of 19:09.7. Leight was one of seven on his team to finish in the Top-10 as Monmouth took the team title.
The women’s cross country team had five runners place in the top-25 and the men’s team had six runners finish in the top-25.
