Wilcox leads Skyhawks with 131st place finish

Senior Sean Hanlon placed 176th overall for Stonehill in 32 minutes and 24.5-seconds.

JOPLIN, Mo. (November 17, 2012) – The Stonehill College men's cross country team, appearing in the NCAA Division II National Championships for the tenth-straight season, finished 30th overall out of 32 teams on Saturday afternoon at Missouri Southern State University.

Adams State captured its NCAA Division II record ninth and 21st overall national title on Saturday placing three of its runners inside the top-5 to score 34 points overall. Colorado Mines finished second overall (102), Alaska Anchorage ranked third (148), Augustana (S.D.) placed fourth overall (182) and Chico State was fifth (183).

"We are better than what we seem to do out here, we do have a young team and I understand that but I think that we all kind of realized that this group has gotten too comfortable racing in New England," said Stonehill head coach Karen Boen. "They are better than what they ran today. They just have to get better at making independent decisions out there on the course instead of running at certain paces."

Sophomore Bryan Wilcox (Plantsville, Conn./Southington) raced to the Skyhawks top finish on the afternoon placing 131st overall in 31:48.7 on the 10-kilometer course. Senior Sean Hanlon (Georgetown, Mass./St. John's Prep) ranked 176th overall with a time of 32:24.5. Classmate Ethan Penney (Haverhill, Mass./Haverhill) crossed the finish line in 190th overall in 32 minutes and 42.0-seconds.

Second-year Daniel Gordon (Plymouth, Mass./Plymouth North) checked in at 199th overall with a time of 32:48.2 while junior Paul Cina (Pembroke, Mass./Pembroke) was 201st overall in 32:48.7.

Sophomore Daniel Zawalich (Paxton, Mass./St. John's) followed the pack in 203rd overall in 32:52.4 and junior Stephen Leonard (Chatham, N.J./Chatham) rounded out the top-seven in 215th with a time of 33:09.0.

The Skyhawks earned their tenth-straight trip to the NCAA Division II National Championships by placing third overall in the NCAA East Regionals. Stonehill had five of its runners (Hanlon, Cina, Gordon, Penney and Zawalich) collect All-East Region accolades for its third place finish on Sunday, November 4.

The Skyhawks also captured their second-straight Northeast-10 Conference (NE-10) title edging out American International College and UMass Lowell by the smallest combined margin of victory among three teams, three points in all, on Sunday, October 20 in Syracuse, N.Y. at Jamesville Beach County Park.

"Here is a team that beat AIC and UMass Lowell at the NE-10 championships and AIC was 12th overall today," said Boen. "We have a very strong conference and the NE-10 had a great showing today. Our guys just work so hard to win the NE-10 and the East Regionals and have to come out here to Nationals and learn how to run better at this level."