BOSTON, Mass. – Senior Julia Morena (Boylston/Tahanto Reg. HS) led the Bentley University women's cross country team during the New England Championships at Franklin Pierce Saturday morning.

Morena was tenth among Notheast-10 Conference runners, 17th among non-Division I athletes and 65th overall as she ran the 5,000 meters in 18:57.54. She improved on her 2015 performance by 28 places and 7.2 seconds.

Her efforts helped Bentley (695 points) finish 27th of 35 overall and fifth among nine NE-10 teams. That was a jump of eight places in the team standings over a year ago.

The Falcons' number two runner was freshman Paige Fehskens (Wareham/Wareham HS) in 138th with a 19:46.64. She was third among NE-10 freshmen in the meet.

Bentley's next three runners crossed consecutively with junior Courtney Loughnane (Canton/ Canton HS) 163rd (20:01.50), senior Katie Burke (Braintree/Braintree HS) 164th (20:05.41) and junior Marianne Bartolotta (Wantagh, N.Y./Trinity HS) 165th (20:06.03).

All three improved significantly over a year ago when Burke was 195th (20:11.4), Bartolotta 221st (20:36.3) and Loughnane 235th (20:05.2).

Stonehill College's Nicole Borofski was the individual champion, winning by about 15 seconds in 17:28.66, and the University of New Hampshire took the team title, outrunning runner-up Harvard University to the tune of 71-137.

Next up for the Falcons is the Northeast-10 Championships Oct. 22 at Stonehill.