NORTH DARTMOUTH, Mass. – The UMass Lowell men's cross country team traveled to UMass Dartmouth Saturday morning to compete in the UMass Dartmouth Invitational in rainy conditions.

"Overall, it was a good day," said Head Coach Gary Gardner. "Our men at the top of the JV race got an excellent workout and we are really pleased with where they are at. David was great in the varsity race, matching what we see in practice."

The men's JV 8k kicked off the day for the squad, as the River Hawks ran well, finishing in the top eight spots. Senior Jan Wouter Van Den Akker (Groningen, Netherlands) led the pack in first with a 25:04.48 mark, while Hunter Marion and Henry Farrington finished second and third right behind him with marks of 25:04.51 and 25:04.54, respectively. Joseph Young (4th, 25:04.84), Landen Vaillancourt (5th, 25:04.88) , William Benoit (6th, 25:26.10), Joseph Curran (7th, 25:26.28) and Ethan Mashtare (8th, 25:26.44) all finished consecutively in round out the top eight. 

The next two runners to cross were Patrick Hall (25:59.84) and Paul Neilan (26:02.94) in 13th and 14th place, respectively. Daniel Burns took 16th (26:10.12), before Tyler Young (20th, 26:23.20), Samuel Denis (22nd, 26:26.28), Hale Boyden (24th, 26:31.02), Anthony Verdi (26th, 26:34.98). 

Dean Allen finished in 33rd with a 26:50.27 mark, while Sean Riley (27:07.17) claimed 39th and Jake Connolly (27:12.64) earned 42nd place. TJ Glowik (48th, 27:32.05), Declan Mulligan (53rd, 27:42.52), Pedro Mayol (54th, 27:44.22) and Sean Kerin (60th, 27:49.09) closed out the race for the River Hawks. 

In the varsity 8k, David McKinnon was the first River Hawk across the finish line in 19th place with a time of 25:27.75. Keegan Tierney (30th, 25:42.54) and Graham Stedfast (35th, 25:48.95) were next, followed by Jamie Lano (43rd, 25:51.94), Timothy Brigham (48th, 25:55.74) and Joshua Rivers (55th, 26:04.50). 

Rounding out the River Hawk runners was Timothy Walsh (57th, 26:07.33), Dante Castellano (58th, 26:07.61), Hatim Boukhtam (62nd, (26:11.78) and Andrew Benassi (66th, 26:14.78).  

The team will now move on to compete at the Paul Short invitational at Lehigh on October 5.