Suffolk University women’s cross country earned a fifth place finish at the NCAA Division III regionals Nov. 16, the best regionals placing in program history.
“This is a team that is more of a family than just a group of talented runners, and because of that they always find a way. They tend to be tougher than the other girls we race who might have faster times on paper. I just know when it gets tough, we’re gonna find a way when other teams can’t,” said head coach Will Feldman.
40 teams competed in the race. While MIT and Tufts ran away with the top two spots in the standings, Bates College, Colby College and Suffolk fought for third and fourth. Initially tied with Colby for fourth, Suffolk would lose the tiebreaker by just four seconds to put them in fifth.
After placing in the top 20 of all athletes at the meet, graduate student Amalia Dorion along with junior Amy Pattelena were awarded with All-New England honors. Dorion placed 14th out of 224 runners and Pattelena placed 17th.
In a race that saw the team write itself into program history, there were also some individual performances that made it into the record books.
“It’s exciting. I’m just happy for them. It’s a group that’s just worked extremely hard, they haven’t taken a day off and have shown consistency all year round. I’m just happy for them and it definitely elevates our program as we’re trying to recruit that next generation of Suffolk runners. It puts us on the map in a bigger way. More than anything I’m just happy for them that they were able to achieve their goals and end their season on a high note,” said Feldman.
According to Suffolk’s press release, Dorion would earn her first All-New England honor and tie the program record for the highest placement at regionals in her very first regionals with Suffolk. Pattelena made program history as well by becoming the first Suffolk athlete to win multiple All-New England honors.
Their success at the NCAA regionals caps off a historic season which saw them win their fourth straight Conference of New England championship.
“They haven’t ceased to amaze me all season. They accomplished everything I thought they were capable of doing this year for sure. It hasn’t come as a surprise, I knew it was a possibility. But when you step back and look upon the season and you see the scores, it is a little mind blowing to say the least,” said Feldman. “Usually you have some pretty big aspirations and come up short, this year we pretty much exceeded or matched all the big goals we had set for ourselves. It’s been a really special year and probably my favorite team to be a part of.”
With this season out of the way, Feldman believes that this program is in a really good spot going forward, especially with the talent of next year’s recruiting class.
“It’s always hard to predict, but I think the sky’s the limit. We should have one of our better recruiting classes ever coming in, and just building upon the success this group has had definitely makes our lives easier when we’re trying to recruit that next generation of Suffolk athletes,” said Feldman. “We’ve turned our attention to next year and the goal next year is to make it five and keep this streak going as long as we can.”
