Notre Dame, Ind. -- The Youngstown State men's and women's cross country teams were in action on Friday at the 57th annual Notre Dame Invitational held at Notre Dame's Cross Country Course. The women had a school-best finish at the event placing eighth in the Gold Race.
Leading the way for the women was Monica Ciarnello who finished 23rd with a time of 18:16 in the 5k course. Ciarnello ran a personal and season-best 5k time by 58 seconds. Junior Anna Pompeo placed 28th with a time of 18:19. Pompeo ran a season-best time by 22 seconds.
Two other Penguins were within one second of one another. Finishing 41st was Brittany Stockmaster with a time of 18:37 while Katie Heney was 42nd at 18:38. Stockmaster had a season-best time by 56 seconds and Heney clocked an improvement of 1:31 for the season.
Other finishers for YSU were Nelly Yegon (64th, 19:14), Jillian Smith (93rd, 20:31), Ashley Smith (96th, 20:55), Paige Eckman (111th, 21:25) and Samantha Atwood (116th, 21:46). Yegon had a season-bet by 54 seconds, Jillian Smith improved by nearly two minutes, Ashley Smith improved by 1:15, Eckman decreased her best time by 1:25 and Atwood had an improvement by more than two minutes.
In the team race, the Penguins had 198 points. Winning the event was TCU with a score of 62. YSU was 10th in 2011 at the event.
For the men, sophomore Nick Gliha was the top finisher placing 28th with a time of 25:22. Gliha improved his 8k time by an impressive 2:26.
Other top finishers for the Penguins were freshmen Kyle Joynes who was 82nd finishing with a time of 26:38 and John Hutnyan who was 87th clocking in at 26:49. Joynes improved his best effort by more than 1:30 while Hutnyan decreased his best time by two-and-a-half minutes.
Rounding out the men's performances were Jerry Dugan was 102nd with a time of 27:51, Ryan Pavlicko finished 110th with a time of 28:14, Vince Corn was 111th with a time of 28:20 and Ryan Sowards was 112th at 28:22.
The men placed 15th out of 18 teams with a score of 409. North Central College won the Gold Race with an impressive score of 54. The Penguins were 17th in 2011.
