Over the weekend, the UConn cross country team competed in the Battle in Beantown for the squad’s third race of the season. Hosted by Boston College, the five-kilometer race took place at a rainy Franklin Park course in Boston, Massachusetts. Racing alongside 15 other schools including many other New England powerhouses, the Huskies finished in fifth place with a scoring order of 7-10-24-39-46 = 126.
Leading the way for Connecticut was junior Chloe Thomas, who ran a personal best of 17:15 in the 5k. Thomas’ stellar performance propelled her to a seventh-place finish out of 185 individual runners. Also placing in the top 10 for UConn was senior Jenna Zydanowicz, who ran a 17:27. Both Thomas and Zydanowicz recorded their second top 10 finishes of the season and are on their way to stellar seasons under head coach Beth Alford-Sullivan.
Connecticut’s total score of 126 trailed Villanova (118), Texas A&M (107), Penn (103) and Harvard (61), who had three runners place in the top 10. Harvard’s Maia Ramsden, who won the 1500m event at the 2023 Division 1 Outdoor Championship, finished in first place individually with a time of 17:00.
With the first three races of the 2023 fall season officially under their belt, Connecticut should be happy with the results that they’ve seen early on. UConn opened the season with a first place finish in the Suffolk Short Classic and followed that up with a second place effort in the Providence Friar Invitational. This weekend’s fifth place performance in the Battle of Beantown is the most recent impressive performance by a Huskies team looking to move up the northeast regional rankings.
The Huskies will return to action on Friday, Oct. 13 at the Arturo Barrios Invitational in College Station, Texas.
