Cross Country competes at Vermont State Collegiate Meet

Lyndon, VT - Saturday Sept 29th Vermont Tech Men's and Women's Cross country ran against Most of the College in Vermont for our annual Vermont College State Championships.  

The VTC Women's Team competed with 3 athletes due to family commitments and injuries.  Team Captain Jenna Jerome unfortunately did not finish because of a bad fall during the race, but freshman Olivia Machado stepped up to take the lead finish for Vermont Tech for the Women. Olivia ran a great race and finised in an outstanding time of 30:01 for the very Hilly 5k course at Northern Vermont University - Lyndon.  Vermont Tech's second femlae runner was Sophie Provost, who ran the most challenging race of her College career.  "I know the women did not have a full team" said coach Dunkle, "though I am really happy with a few things today. Jenna was running very well until she went down and Olivia and Sophie are looking extremely strong. I see Olivia in the top 3 or 4 on this team consistently. She is a hard worker and a very dependable person."  The course at NVU - Lundon was very hilly and had quite narrow trails through the woods with lots of tree roots. There were a lot of bloody knees and muddy legs at the finish line for both races. 

The Vermont Tech men's team ran a full squad, even without a few runners present.  When looking at the Men's race results for VTC, there was a strong sense of turning a corner in the season. Freshman Tyler Dunham ran a very strong race. Tyler ran in front of many runners from other schools that we have raced this year that had beaten him previously. "Not just beaten him" said coach Dunkle, "but by 2-3 minutes at one race.  Tyler came to life and found his groove on this course." He was not the only one from Vermont Tech who ran well. Matt Kelly, Kevin Krosock. Michael Dunkle, Zach Bourne, and Jaiden Jackson (2nd - 6th for the team, respectiely) all ran strong races against previous opponents.  Overall the Men finished 6th, with Castleton just edging us out of the 5th place spot.  Both Vermont Tech teams trained through this meet so that we could be stronger for the Westfield Invitational next weekend. The last regular season meet at Westfield shoudl give an indication of the team's chances at the confrerenec race on Oct 20th, since the courses are slimilar. The team is looking forward to a fun trip and mixing it up with a lot of colleges from throughout New England on the 6th.