SU men and women place 1st during Three Team Battle in Beantown
Courtesy of SU Athletics
Amanda Vestri, pictured during a 2019 race, has compiled back-to-back first-place finishes to open the season.
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Syracuse men and women finished in first place during the teams’ second race of the season Friday in the Three Team Battle in Beantown.
Over 20 schools raced in the Battle in Beantown in 2019. But only Syracuse, Army and Boston College participated in this year’s race, held in Attleboro, Massachusetts. To comply with social distancing rules, all teams were limited to 15 runners per race.
Friday’s race was redshirt senior JP Trojan’s second, and he placed first among 36 runners in the men’s 8k. Senior Amanda Vestri placed first in the women’s 5k. Both Trojan and Vestri have placed first in back-to-back races to open the season.
In the men’s 8k, Trojan (24:41) placed first and fellow redshirt senior Joe Dragon (24:42) followed by one second. Army’s Marshall Beatty (24:43) placed a second behind Dragon while Syracuse’s Matthew Scrape (24:47) and redshirt freshman Alex Comerford (24:56) followed behind at fourth and fifth, respectively.
Comerford also finished in fifth place at the Sept. 12 race at West Point. Redshirt junior Nathan Henderson (25:12) dropped four places from his last race two weeks ago and placed sixth.
Altogether, eight Syracuse racers filled out the top-ten, a slight drop from two week ago, when the top-nine racers were all from Syracuse. Dragon also went up three spots from last year’s Battle in Beantown race.
In the women’s 5k, Vestri (17:23) placed first in her second consecutive race of the season. A mix of Boston College and West Point runners trailed behind by at least four seconds, and freshman Savannah Roark (18:09) placed fifth. Fellow freshman Sarah Connelly (18:11) placed at sixth, following two seconds behind Roark. Sophomore Kate Kemnitz (18:22) finished at eight and was the last Syracuse racer to finish in the top-ten.
The results from the SU women’s team were an improvement from two weeks ago. Despite Vestri placing first at West Point, only Connelly and Justus Holden-Betts finished with her in the top-10. Connelly dropped two spots on Friday from two weeks prior, while Holden-Betts (19:23) finished at 25th. But the addition of Roark and Kemnitz this week allowed the Orange to get a slight boost in the overall top-ten, with four overall.
Published on September 25, 2020 at 6:49 pm
Contact Christopher: [email protected] | @chrisscargs
