By Ryan Franklin
In its second meet of the year, Eastern entered UMass Dartmouth, the site of the Little East Conference championships, with high hopes, knowing its reputation as a flat course and fast times.
Three Eastern runners finished the 8 kilometer course in under 28 minutes, with Eastern's most versatile runner, junior Tim Callahan of Portland, leading the way in 27:33, finishing 107th out of 255 total runners in the varsity race. Shortly after Callahan came standout freshmen Dave Klein (New Milford) in 27:53, good for 129th place, and Kyle Shaw (Lebanon) in 27:56 for 133rd place. Less than a minute later, junior Ryan Franklin (Glastonbury) avenged a poor first race at Fitchburg and ran his first 8k under 29 minutes, finishing in 28:53 for 166th place. Rounding out Eastern's top seven were senior Bryan Jorge (Bristol) in 29:22 for 177th place, senior Ryan Hughes (Cheshire) in 30:11 for 205th place, and talented senior mid-distance specialist Casey McGarvey (Bozrah) in 33:08 for 235th place.
We will be competing at the Codfish Bowl in Boston this Saturday, where we finished 16th last year in a field of 25 team.
