The Brandeis men’s and women’s cross country teams had outstanding performances at the Connecticut College Invitational this past Saturday, finishing third and first respectively. The most recent U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association poll had the Brandeis men 22nd in the country for Division III cross country. The same poll, which can be found on the association’s website, ranks the women 15th in the country for the second week in a row. Both teams are ranked fourth in the Northeast region.
The men finished third out of 16 teams and were paced by Chris Brown ’12. Brown came in fourth place out of 214 runners with a time of 25:32 on the eight-kilometer course, just 15 seconds behind the winner.
Marc Boutin ’12 also cracked the top ten with a time of 25:36, landing him in eighth place. Devon Holgate ’11 finished 14th at 25:54 while classmate Dan Anastos put up a time of 26:28 to land in 25th. Ryan Cheng ’11 had a time of 26:55 to come in 55th.
With these results the Judges moved up the University Athletic Association (UAA) best 8K times list for 2009. Brown and Boutin now hold first and second place respectively, while Holgate moves up to sixth place. Emory University and New York University each have two runners with top-ten times, but no other school has three runners in the top ten.
The women’s team saw even greater success at the Connecticut College Invitational this weekend with all eight runners finishing in the top 50 out of 197 runners, including three in the top ten.
This was the second meet of the season the Judges won, though this was the first with more than two team competing. They took down 14 other schools to capture the win with 54 points, 34 points better than runner-up RPI.
The Judges were paced on the six-kilometer course by Marie Lemay ’11, who finished fifth with a time of 22:47. Alyssa Pisarick ’12 finished just three seconds behind Lemay for sixth place. Kate Warwick ’12 put up a time of 23:01 for eighth place.
Brandeis also had two runners finish in the top twenty, Ally Connolly ’10 and Emily Owen ’11, who ran 23:28 for 17th and 23:40 for 20th respectively.
Molly Shanley ’11 came in 28th overall with a time of 24:08 while Jess Girard and Julia Alpaio, both ’10, finished 31st and 47th with times of 24:13 and 24:43. The top five runners for the Judges finished within 53 seconds of one another while less than two minutes separated Lemay from Alpaio.
Like the men, the women’s performance this weekend moved them up the UAA 2009 best 6K times list. Lemay, Pisarik, and Warwick now hold onto the top three spots. In addition Connolly is tied for fifth with Kirsten Keller from NYU, Owen holds the eighth, and Shanley the tenth.
In addition to these outstanding performances, both teams have a runner being honored as a UAA Athlete of the Week.
Brown is the men’s cross country athlete of the week thanks to his performance at the Invitational while Lemay holds the honors for women’s cross country. Both teams are off until next Saturday, Oct. 10, when they will compete in the Open New England Championships at Franklin Park in Boston.
