Benoit top Tiger at UNB Invitational

(FREDERICTON, NB) Runners from the Laval Rouge et Or swept the top spots in the women's and men's races at Saturday's UNB Invitational. 

The meet was an interlock event featuring teams from Atlantic University Sport and RSEQ. 

Laval's Catherine Beauchemin won the women's eight kilometre race while her teammate Philippe Mourneau-Cartier was the men's race. 

Allie Sandlack of STFX was the top AUS woman, finishing fifth, just ahead of UNB's Emily Doucet. 

"It was good to see where we are relative to the Quebec schools and figure out where we need to be come November," said Sandlack. 

Beauchemin beat Laval teammate Sara-Pier Paquet and Sherbrooke's Laurence Gauthier, while Sandlack edged Doucet by four-tenths of a second for fifth. 

"The Quebec schools have a lot of good runners, so seeing where I stand with them is definitely a motivator," said Doucet, whose result came as a bit of a surprise. 

"At the beginning of September, I wasn't even going to do cross country, but after a couple of practices we decided to see what happens." 

"When we recruited her here, that's who we expected, that's who we wanted to show up," said Chris Belof, the head coach of the REDS. "She's gotten better each year and really bought into cross country this year." 

Eileen Benoit and Mairin Canning, both of STFX, ran seventh and eighth, while Dalhousie's Waverly Mulligan was 10th. 

Laval took the women's team event ahead of STFX, Sherbrooke and UNB. Dal was fifth in the team standings, Acadia sixth, UPEI eighth and Memorial ninth. 

In the men's race, Morneau-Cartier led a Laval sweep of the top three spots, finishing ahead of Jean-Simon Desgagnés and Jonathan Tedeschi. 

UNB's Jared Howse was fourth ahead of Laval's Alexis Lepage, while Dal's Jacob Benoit ran sixth. Jack O'Connell of STFX was the only other AUS runner to finish in the top ten, placing ninth. 

"I feel pretty good about it," said Howse. "The whole point of this weekend wasn't to just throw all the cards on the table, so we all went out a little more controlled and determined how we were feeling and made it good prep for later in the season." 

"They're really fit guys and opened it up and put on a bit of a gap," Howse said of the Laval runners. "I just stuck with them as much as I could and stuck with them enough to have a good finish." 

"I think I was doing okay through six kilometres and a couple others paced themselves pretty well and I didn't respond," said Benoit. "I didn't show up as well as I'd like, but I'll be prepared in a few weeks." 

Laval took the men's team title while UNB and Sherbrooke tied for second. 

STFX was fourth in the team standings with Dal fifth, Memorial sixth, Saint Mary's seventh, UPEI tenth and Moncton eleventh. 

The next event on the Atlantic University Sport schedule is the conference championship meet, in Halifax, on October 28th.