Campus Sports Notes

Keene State College senior men’s cross country runner Kevin Hoyt, of Newtown, was named the Little East Conference runner of the week for his efforts at the Little East Conference Championships last week. Hoyt is headed to Wisconsin-Oshkosh for next Saturday’s NCAA Division III Cross Country Championship. He earned an at-large berth to the national meet with a strong performance at the New England Regional cross country championships at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine this past Saturday. Hoyt finished ninth on the 8K course with a time of 25:02

Hoyt swept the individual titles at the 2011 New England Alliance and Little East Conference Championship, on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, earlier this month. The senior covered the rain-soaked 8K course in a time of 24:50 to lead the 153-person regional field. Hoyt helped Keene State earn second place in each championship field. 

Sandy Hook’s Taylor Smith helped the Lesley University women’s soccer team to the NECC Division Title Final in Cambridge Mass. Smith has anchored the defense as a center back throughout the entire season. The team won 14 games and allowed only one goal in its 16 games leading up to the championship.

University of Massachusetts-Boston sophomore soccer defender Ally Modzelewski, of Newtown, earned Second Team All-Conference honors after another strong season with the Beacons. Modzelewski earned the honor for the second year in a row. Modzelewski played a major part in the Beacons’ record-setting 12 shutouts this season. A starter in all 21 matches, Modzelewski has helped UMass to back-to-back Little East Conference and ECAC New England Region tournament appearances.

James Marusi, a former Newtown Youth Lacrosse player, has given a verbal commitment to the University of Massachusetts men’s lacrosse program. Marusi will take the field with the Minutemen in the fall of 2013. He is a junior varsity player at Fairfield College Preparatory School. He made the All Star team at the Top 205 recruiting camp in Maryland and Peak 100 in Massachusetts this past summer and has played with the Yale New Haven Bulldog Elite club for the past two years. The University of Massachusetts is a Division I program that’s typically ranked among the top teams in the country. The UMass lacrosse program also has a long-standing history of making its way into the NCAA tournament. Marusi will enroll in the Isenberg School of Business and concentrate on Sports Management.