Seton Hall University
ECAC Championships
Migton Medals at ECAC Championships
11/23/2013 12:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country
Nov. 23, 2013
BRONX, N.Y. - In a scene familiar to that of last season's ECAC Championship, a Seton Hall junior took over the top spot on the team from a senior who had led the squad in every race leading up to the final weekend. After finishing second for The Hall in the first eight events of the year, junior Mary Migton (Ledgewood, N.J.) came within two seconds of setting a new 5K personal record despite a challenging Van Cortlandt Park course, placing 12th out of 162 runners with a time 18:41.2.
The performance earned her a medal as one of the top-15 individual finishers in the race.
Nyala Eddings (Chicago, Ill.) led The Hall at last year's ECAC meet, surpassing then senior Hughnique Rolle, and used that effort to propel herself into a senior campaign in which she was the unquestioned leader on the course as she paced the squad in eight events. In the final outing of her stellar career, Eddings turned in a personal-best 5K 19:11.6 to rank 28th in the University Division race. It was the seventh top-30 performance of 2013 for the Chicago native as she closes a collegiate career in which she ranked among the team's top performers in every race over her final three years.
Placing third on the team for the ninth consecutive race was freshman Desyre Blackburn (Aloha, Ore.) who bester her previous season-best 5K mark by nearly 25 seconds to take 75th place with a 20:14.4 effort. Blackburn, Eddings and Migton comprised the squad's top trio throughout the campaign and looking ahead to the future, she figures to factor greatly into the program's continued improvement.
A 21:45.3 effort gave sophomore Amanda Quaglia (Reading, Pa.) a third consecutive scoring effort to end the season as she ranked fourth among SHU entrants. Injuries slowed Quaglia for much of the season but down the stretch, she regained the form that helped her score in all nine meets during her freshman season.
Louisa Ozimek (Strongsville, Ohio) became the 11th different Pirate to crack the team's top-five this year as she reached the finish with a career-best 5K time of 22:09.6. Ozimek has seen limited action over the course of the 2013 season but returned in the final race of the season to record her first scoring time since her freshman campaign.
Seton Hall finished tied for 13th out of 17 teams with a cumulative score of 334. Pittsburgh was crowned University Division champions with a score of 83.
Eddings and fellow tri-captain Kristen May (Shrewsbury, Mass.) are the only two seniors on a 16-member team that proved its depth throughout the season. Migton will return in 2014 to guide a squad that will feature eight other scorers from this year's team.
