With the loss of Mia Guerra to graduation last spring, Rowan University’s women’s cross country needed to rely on key returners to step up, in order to help the team repeat as New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) and Metro Regional champions. One of those runners is senior Gabriella Pagano.

Pagano is from Blairstown, N.J. and went to high school at Pope John XXIII. She has been with the program since her freshman year, and felt there were two main factors that helped her decide that Rowan was the right place to go.

“I came to Rowan for two reasons, one of them being their engineering school. I am an electrical and computer engineering major so that obviously mattered a lot to me,” Pagano said. “I did have an offer from NJIT, but that was basically the highest I could’ve competed at. But Division III (DIII) athletics, where you can focus on your studies but also run and have fun were the most important things to me.”

The challenging engineering program here at Rowan hasn’t stopped Pagano from performing exceptionally well in her time running for the team. She placed fifth at the NJAC Championships and fifteenth at Metro Regionals last season. Pagano started this season off even stronger, with a first-place finish in the Salisbury Fall Classic with a time of 21:25.10, outracing the second-place finisher from Division 1 U.S. Naval Academy by over 20 seconds. 

The impressive start at Salisbury hasn’t made Pagano complacent, though, as she looks to continue to work towards hitting another personal record.

“Obviously, I have individual goals, I hope to PR again,” Pagano said. “I set a new PR at Salisbury. It was the fastest I’ve ever run by over a minute, so that was exciting.”

Head coach Shedrick Elliot III feels confident that Pagano can translate her success at Salisbury towards the rest of the season. He described some of the key traits that he’s noticed from her since he joined the program last season.

“Very direct, intentional, purposeful, great communicator,” Elliot III said. “She was probably my first lengthy phone conversation I had with one of the student-athletes here. I felt her to be insightful and committed to her craft.”

Elliot III also feels that the rest of the team views Pagano as an example of a leader within the program.

“During the preseason, I asked each young lady to describe characteristics of an ideal leader,” Elliot III said. “Once they described those characteristics, I said, ‘Give me the first thing that comes to your brain,’ and in quite a few scenarios it was her [Pagano’s] name that came up.”

Pagano is part of a top five that will look to help the team repeat as NJAC and Metro Regional champions, and her strong start shows a lot of promise.

She looks to leave a lasting mark on the program, like Guerra and Molly Lodge, whom Pagano hopes to emulate.

“The best person I can speak to is Molly Lodge,” Pagano said. “She left a really big impact on this team, and I’m hoping to do the same thing.”

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