NEWARK, N.J. – Under sunny skies at race time, the Centenary University men's and women's cross country teams turned in a strong showing at the Highlander Invitational hosted by NJIT on Saturday.

"Pre-race was cool, overcast and windy, but as soon as that first gun went off, there was sunshine and the wind seemed to die down," said head coach Pat Regan. "The New Jersey location for the race meant several parents could see their children race today and the intrasquad support was awesome!"

Running against a talented field that included runners from Division I, II and III, the Centenary women finished 22nd on the 5K course.

Rhiannon Ginnetti led the squad with a 25:46 for 109^th place. Ginnetti's time was her best 5k mark of the season and bettered her time from last year's Highlander Invitational by 11 seconds.

Kelly Ann Earrusso completed the course in 28:12, as she also posted her top 5k time of the season and improved her time in the same event from a year ago by 15 seconds.

The top 5 scoring was rounded out by Yvanna Germosen (30:26), Alexa Visconti (30:29) and Carolyn Rosenberg (30:29).

Filling out the rest of the women's squad were Dara Murphy in 36:58, Stefania Mizakova in 37:07, and Olivia Marion in 43:45.

Regan remarked, "the tight grouping of the women's placing showed how the girls are improving on running a team-scoring oriented race."

Again, running against a strong field that included runners from all three divisions, the men's race had some of the biggest improvements of the day.

The Cyclones were led by Matt Oehrlein, who finished in 33:51 improving his placing by 80 spots over last year's Highlander Invitational. It was a person best for the graduate student.

Matt Perine followed with a 35:54 (a 6:20 improvement over last year, and a lifetime PR by over three minutes).

Not far behind Perine was teammate Gabriel Lentzner who clocked in a time of 36:02. John Triana ran a 37:06, and the scoring was rounded out by Angelo Piazza's 37:51.

Jarod Gajda ran a 38:29, followed by Kevin Zaccareo Jr. in 40:37 and Joshua Scialom in 40:55 to wrap up the scoring.

The Cyclones wrap up their regular season when they head to the Wilkes' "Blue and Gold" Classic on Friday, Oct. 14.