RALEIGH, N.C. – A small group of River Hawks from the UMass Lowell outdoor track and field team traveled to the Raleigh Relays at NC State on Thursday to kick off the outdoor season.

Freshman Alessandra Forgione (Peabody, Mass.) highlighted the day, breaking the UMass Lowell women's javelin record in her first collegiate outdoor meet. She hit an impressive 44.60m to claim ninth place at the highly competitive meet.

Next was the men's 1,500m, where graduate student Andrew Benassi (Reading, Mass.) was the lone River Hawk finsher with a 3:54.05 mark for 185th place. The 3,000m steeplechase was next, and senior Ethan Mashtare (St. Albans, Vt.) represented the River Hawks with a 9:28.90 mark and 65th-place finish. 

In the 5,000m, freshman James Cruse (Melbourne, Australia) led the River Hawks with a 125th-place finish out of 206 runners and a 14:32.97 mark. Next was freshman William Simard (Francestown, N.H.) in 128th place with a 14:35.08 mark, before fellow freshman Will Conklin (Danvers, Mass.) rounded off the UMass Lowell runners in 170th place with a time of 14:52.09. 

The 10,000m concluded the day, and both UMass Lowell runners impressed, as graduate student Jan Wouter van den Akker (Groningen, Netherlands) zoomed to a 15th-place performance out of 95 total finshers with a 28:57.87 mark. Graduate student Will Benoit (Fairhaven, Mass.) claimed 65th place with a time of 30:09.30 to end the day for the squad.

"It was a good first day," said Head Coach Gary Gardner. "Wouter finishing in the top 15 in the best 10k in the East this season is a phenomenal effort. Humidity hurt a lot of the distance times but we competed very well. James, Will and Will had great 5k debuts and that is going to be a special group. Alessandra might have had the best debut in our program history. To set a school record in your first competition in amazing."

Next, a new group of River Hawks will compete in day two of the Raleigh Relays tomorrow, Friday, March 27, while the rest of the men's and women's teams will take part in the D'Amour Invitational at home in Lowell.