The Mount Ida College men's and women's cross country teams competed in the Travis J. Fuller Invitational this past Saturday at Massachusetts Maritime Academy for their first event of the 2010 season.  The women's squad turned in a program best 4^th place finish with 128 total team points.  The men's team, in their first race as a varsity team under the direction of fourth year head coach Noel Vigue and second year assistant coach Brian Binari, came in eighth place with 209 total points. 

Mount Ida College junior Jeileen Rivera (Springfield, MA/Springfield Central) finished in 14^th place overall, the first Mustang runner to cross the finish line, with a time of 20:30.  Rivera was followed by freshman Therese Pymento (Newburyport, MA/Bishop Fenwick) in 24^th place with a time of 21:37.  In 32^nd place, in her first race as a member of the team, sophomore Alexandria Milot (Tiverton, RI/Tiverton) crossed the finish line with a time of 22:05.  Finishing 44^th and 45^th was sophomore Michelle Richard (Nashua, NH/Nashua) and junior Lindsay Pitts (Brockton, MA/West Bridgewater) also in their first races as Mustangs.  Richard finished with a time of 22:47 followed by Pitts with a time of 22:54.  Senior's Melissa Fuller (Woburn, MA/Woburn) and Danielle Chuba (Wrightstown, NJ/Northern Burlington Regional) finished consecutively in 72^nd and 73^rd place with times of 24:32 and 25:13.  Junior Alicia Ford (Nashua, NH/Nashua North) finished in 88^th place with a time of 27:15:  Junior Mairead Coleman (Cranston, RI/Cranston) was the final Mount Ida runner to finish in 99^th place with a time of 31:08.

The men's cross country squad pulled in an eighth place finish with junior Sean Slattery (South Burlington, VT/South Burlington) crossing first for the Mustangs in 51^st place with a time of 31:58.  Freshman Daniel Rubin (Staten Island, NY/Somerville HS (NJ)) came in 57^th place and the second runner to finish for Mount Ida with a time of 32:50.  Directly behind Rubin came first year runner and sophomore Jake Davis (Chester, NH/Pinkerton Academy) in 58^th place with a time of 32:52.  Sophomore's Mike Durand (Londonderry, NH/Londonderry) and Ryan Tirelli (Yorktown, NY/Yorktown) were the final runners to finish in 65^th and 66^th place with times of 34:00 and 34:15. 

The Mustangs will travel to the UMASS-Dartmouth Invitational this coming Saturday starting at 11:15 in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.