'AMHERST, MA. 9/7/01 - Keene State women's and men's cross country teams opened their season by placing third and fourth respectively at the Amherst College Invitational on Saturday. 

The KSC women finished with 68 points.  Trinity won the team title with 40 points.

Junior Karen Jordan (Enfield, N.H.) paced the Owls with a 5th place finish (19:54). Stephanie Gibson (Sanbornton, N.H.) was right behind her in 6th place (20:01).  Also scoring for KSC was freshman Erin Blaisdell (Lunenburg, MA.) (16th/20:59), Meaghan Matthews (Springfield, MA.) (18th/21:04), and Laurie Yorgensen (Wethersfield, CT) (23rd /21:18).

Marissa Clapp of Springfield won the race in a time of 18:50.

The Owl men tallied 106 points to finish behind front-runner Trinity (23 points).

KSC's top three finishes were freshmen: Joseph Hegarty (Springfield, MA.) (11th/27:45), Matthew Haley (Middleton, MA.) (12th /27:52), and Ryan Gough (Billerica, MA.) (17th/28:08).  Chris Kuil (Concord N.H) (31st/28:47) and Patrick Ard (Kingston, N.H.) round out the other Owl scorers.

Ryan Bak of Trinity won the men's race with a time of 25:55 over the five mile course.

"All in all I thought it was a pretty good day," said KSC Coach Peter Thomas.  Both teams posted better times than they did at last year's first race."

KSC will run its varsity members next week, including Mark Miller and Mary Proulx, at the Dartmouth Invitational.