Pirates Take Aim at Friday's BIG EAST Championship

Months of training and competing for the Seton Hall women's cross country team now culminates with a chance to win a championship. The Pirates will vie for the 2016 BIG EAST Championship Friday at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. The 6K race will commence at 11 a.m.

Click here for live stats on the day of the championship. Follow @SHUPiratesXC and @BIGEASTChamps for live updates on race day. The BIG EAST Digital Network will then air a recap show of the championship on Saturday at 1 p.m., through the FOX Sports GO app.

Pirate Points

Junior Christiana Rutkowski (Middletown, N.J.) has rebounded from an IT Band injury that forced her to miss the entire 2015 season by leading the Pirates in four out of five races that she's run. In fact, going back to her freshman year, she has been Seton Hall's top finisher in 11 out of 12 races. She finished first on the team and sixth overall in the 5K race that helped the Pirates win the Embry-Riddle Asics Invitational on Sept. 17. Last year, Rutkowski became a vegan.
Sophomore Kiley Britten (Crystal Lake, Ill.), the team's top finisher at last year's BIG EAST Championship, has finished in the top four among her teammates in all five races she's run. In her latest race at the Leopard Invitational, she improved her 6K time by 66 seconds, earning a 10th place finish overall.
Senior Desyre Blackburn (Aloha, Ore.), junior Emily Johnson (Wildwood Crest, N.J.) and freshman Kassandra Yocco (Bethlehem, Pa.) have all finished in the top five of every meet this season with Yocco showing much promise in her rookie campaign. She placed 25th overall in the 6K Delaware Invitational under very hot conditions.
Blackburn, one of the team captains and a finance and marketing double major, is in the top 10 percent of her class academically and already has a job lined up for post-graduation: financial analyst at JP Morgan.