Women's squad places sixth among 28 teams at Van Cortland Park;

Sept. 16, 2006

NEW YORK CITY - Senior Karen Ziga turned in a 5K time of 20 minutes on the nose to lead the Franklin & Marshall Diplomats to a sixth place finish out of 28 teams at the New York University Cross Country Invitational Saturday morning.

Ziga was ninth out of 262 runners and she had a solid supporting cast in Meredith Janeczek (34th in 21:21), Virginia Earl (46th in 21:34), Katie Byrne (55th in 21:52) and Colette Buchanan (58th in 22:02).

Maggie Selzer and Karen Blacher also finished in the top 100; Selzer was 78th in 22:34 and Blacher 96th in 23:05.

The men continued their improvement; Harrison Miller, Pavel Marosine and Franklin Dekker finished 59th, 60th and 61st, respectively, with Miller running a 29:24 in the 8K event, Marosine a 29:25 and Dekker a 29:26.

Matthew Oleska and Sean Houghton were the team's fourth and fifth-place runners; Oleska was 103rd in 30:59 and Houghton 148th in 32:53.

Coach Keith Dieterle's teams will be in action again Saturday, Sept. 23rd at the Philadelphia Metro Meet.