KEENE, N.H. – Maggie St. John finished 15th in a field of 240 runners on the women's side and Tyler Bolaske 16th in a field of 237 on the men's as the Keene State College cross country teams hosted their own invitational at the Owl Athletic Complex on Saturday.

St. John covered the 5K (3.1 mile) course 18:35.8, 14 seconds from a top 10 finish and 13 seconds faster than a season ago.  It was a strong day for the Owl women overall, who placed second as a team with 117 points to edge Wellesley College (127 points).  In addition to St. John, KSC had three other top 30 finishers including Anna O'Reilly (26th, 19:04.0), Sarah Ames (28th, 19:08.1), and Kallie Warner (29th, 19:09.6).  Aurora Couto finished in 57th (19:54.4), Ava Fortin in 66th (20:03.7), Rita Cummings in 67th (20:08.9) to round out the Owls' scoring contingent.  Sara Christian finished in 73rd (20:18.2).

Tessa Tanner (91st, 20:51.5), Jaden Johnson (98th, 20:59.8), Alyssa Edgren (122nd, 21:27.5), Maya Wedge (159th, 22:19.4), Eleni Papadopolous (163rd, 22:27.7), and Alana Perry (170th, 22:38.5), Autumn Boisvert (183rd, 23:13.8), and Sarah O'Connell (186th, 23:20.9) also ran for KSC on the women's side, which has finished in the top 10 as a team in all four of their meets this season including third or higher three times.

On the men's side, KSC finished eighth of 21 teams despite sitting out Jake Velazquez, who had he run would have been bidding for his fourth individual win of the season.  Bolaske covered the 8K (4.97 mile) course in 25:59.5, nearly three minutes (2:41) faster than his time at the KSC Invitational last year as a rookie.  He was joined by freshman Ben Tetu (34th, 26:51.4) and sophomore Griffin Urnezis (47th, 27:02.8) to record top 50 finishes.

Marty Nelligan (67th, 27:28.9), Nicholas Terranova (87th, 27:50.9), Ben Harley (97th, 28:12.0), Jonathan MacQuarrie (111th, 28:25.0) were KSC's other scoring runners as the Owls finished with 214 points as a team, just two away from seventh-place Endicott College.  Fellow Little East Conference members Eastern Connecticut State University (2nd, 152), Plymouth State University (3rd, 156), and the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth (5th, 168) were ahead of KSC (sans Velazquez), while the University of Southern Maine was ninth with 278 points.

Also running for the KSC men was Alex Labrecque (142nd, 29:23.4), Tyler Robinson (186th, 31:05.4), and Ted Rockwell (226th, 36:10.7).

Williams College, ranked No. 16 nationally on the men's side and No. 20 on the women's side in the most recent national coaches' polls, won both team titles, with their men featuring the first nine finishers and compiling a score of 15.  Charles Namiot outdistanced his teammates by 22 seconds, finishing in 24:25.2.  The Ephs' Kate Tuttle won the women's race in 17:55.2, four seconds faster than teammate Tamar Byl-Brann.  Haley Olivier (Rhode Island College) finished in 18:02.6, followed by Wellesley College's Ella Whinney (5th, 18:04.0), and Bridgewater State University's Naomi Cass (6th, 18:05.0).  Williams then had the next four finishers after that, compiling a score of 19 on the women's side with 10 runners in the top 14.

The Owls will travel to the Connecticut College Invitational in Waterford on Saturday, October 19 for their next action, which will be followed by the Little East championship two weeks later at UMass-Dartmouth's Robert Dowd Cross County Course.