The Manchester Running Company Masters Women's took the win at the Old Wethersfield 10k on Sunday morning; it was the third win of the year for the ladies, who closed to within two points of the overall lead, heading into the final race of the USATF-CT Road Running Grand Prix Series. The MRC open men's and open women's teams took second in the competition while the men's masters team was a hotly-contested fifth.
Individual Results
Team Results
On a very warm morning, though humidity lower, Amy Heffernan led the MRC masters women to victory with a time of 44:46 and was followed by Melissa Emmerich in 46:42 and Sarah Ferrero was the third scoring member with a 47:47 clocking. The masters team took the win by over ten minutes in front of Milford Road Runners and Mohegan Striders. The MRC ladies are now down just two points, despite not scoring at two races this season, to Milford with the final race at the New Haven 20k on Labor Day.
The Open women's team had another strong showing and sits just four points out of first place in the season-scoring, as Melissa Stellato was the top runner for MRC in 38:44; she was the fourth overall female in the race. MRC newcomer Anne Leonard-Blake debuted as the team's second female in 40:36 and Briana Demers closed the scoring in 42:10; Tricky Tanksley and Demers used teamwork throughout the race to secure the team's second place finish. Tanksley was the age group winner in 42:30. Tulsi Patel, Hilary Lawrence, Lori Noto, Candy Hendrix, Brett Rae Glotzer and Nicole Bickley also helped the team to second place behind SoundRunner Racing and Milford Road Runners.
On the men's side, Morgan Kennedy led the team with a fourth-place overall finish and a time of 34:32; Jake Gurzler was the second runner in 35:42 (7th overall) and Adam Gootnick was the third MRC runner in 37:09. Shizhong Yang was just behind Gootnick to finish in 37:42 and Joe Hallisey closed out the scoring with a 40:04 showing. The scoring squad took second place for the fourth time this season and find themselves in second place in the overall standings - just one point ahead of Mohegan Striders. Matt Maynes, Patrick Byrne, and Greg Tutolo all finished within 15 seconds of each other to go 6-7-8 for the MRC open men.
Hallisey led the masters men and was assisted by Chris Eckett (43:41) and Tom Soisson (44:02), Mark McCarty finished in 45:32 and the team finished fifth overall. The top three men's masters teams were separated by just 40 seconds. With just one race to go, the masters men are in fifth place in the standings, but are a mere 4 points out of second place.
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