NORTH DARTMOUTH, Mass.--Senior Lauren Perkowski cruised to her second consecutive Little East Conference individual championship at the 2019 version of the event at UMass Dartmouth on Saturday.

Women's Race

Perkowski proved herself the class of the LEC yet again, winning in 18:22.33, beating runner-up Kaylyn Crompton of Castleton by more than 26 seconds.   Perkowski was the only running to break a six minute mile pace on the day.   That winning time of 18:22.33 is the 11th fastest 5K time in LEC Championship history.

Perkowski is the fifth Owl to repeat as individual champion, joining Mary Proulx (2000, 2001, 2002), Jennifer Adams (2005, 2006, 2007), Paige Mills (2010, 2011), and Samantha Goldsmith (2013, 2014).  Other KSC individual champs include Karen Jordan (2003), Breanne Lucey (2006), Rita Marcotte (2008), Allison Chamberlain (2009), Kait Wheeler (2015), and Lindsay Szuch (2016).

The Owls also got a third place performance from Lynne Hebert, who crossed the line in 18:55.53, while Christina Martin was 14th in 19:57.19, and Skyler Gauthier was 17th in 20:03.65.   Perkowski and Hebert were both named All-Conference.  

Chloe Page completed the Owl scorers with a 27th place finish in 20:42.44.   Hannah Jones (30th, 20:53.50), Alexis Gauthier (35th, 21:22.29), and Sarah Bialkin (41st, 21:53.56) rounded out the KSC contingent.   Keene State was second as a team with 59 points, while Eastern Connecticut State claimed the championship with 48 points.

Men's Race

Freshman Jacob Pearl was third overall in an extremely close finish, in 25:21.66, just .44 seconds behind second place Bruno Pires of UMass Dartmouth, and 1.38 seconds behind individual champion Yahya Nure of Southern Maine.  Dylan Richards was in 31st place with a time of 27:29.58, while Robby St. Laurent was 38th in 27:41.57 and Zach Coburn was 39th in 27:47.75.  Southern Maine claimed the team title with 37 points.  Pearl was an LEC All-Conference honoree.