Vermont Tech hosts Collegiate Meet, VTC women 3rd and men 4th
Randolph Center, VT - Vermont Tech Cross Country hosted their 7th annual Vermont Tech maple Syrup Challenge on campus. In attendance were Middlebury College, Molloy College from Long Island, Albany College of Pharmacy, Paul Smith's College, University of Maine Augusta , and Northern Vermont University - Johnson.
When asked about the meet, coach Bob Dunkle expressed enthusiasm about his Men's and Women's Team performances. "We had a great day today. It was our first meet of the year and we performed well. We expected to get beat by Middelbury, they have a great program, awesome coaches and come from a Division II program. Vermont Tech stood up though against our YSCC division schools, losing to Paul Smith's on the Men's side by only 11 points without one of our top 3 runners. The Men finished 4th of the 7 schools attending while the women finished 3rd , and 1st in our division.
The women were outstanding in this meet. We had a great first race from Emma Labadie (Sharon Academy, 2017) and a surprisingly strong performance from Jenna Jerome (U32, 2017) as well as Masha Goodspeed (Rutland HS) who finished 3rd on the team. Vermont Tech has a large women's team this year with 8 women on the team of which 6 are freshmen. According to Dunkle the Vermont Tech program is the strongest he has seen in the 8 years he has been coaching at Vermont Tech. "Our involvement in the high school community has helped a lot. People are starting to see that Vermont Tech is a serious running school. We help coach several different High School programs in the Winter and Spring. We host the track and field festival in the spring, and a couple big High School meets here on campus. We love running here. So many trails and hills to train on and great support from the college community. "
When asked about his teams prospects for the remainder of the year Dunkle replied that "with solid training and no injuries our Women's team and Men's teams will be in solid contention for conference titles". So when you see us on the roads at 6:30 am or throughout the day honk for support and say hi. We love the community support.
UMA Sophomore Faith Krause and freshman Hunter Hoague led the way for the Moose women's team, working together most of the race sharing pacing duties. Krause pulled ahead by a few seconds over the course of the last 800 meters to finish first for the Moose in a time of 27:13 followed by Hoague in a time of 27:28.