At the Keene State Invitational, Brandeis cross country had a showing. Both men’s and women’s teams participated in competitions at Keene State College on Oct. 2. The men’s team came in second place overall against 11 other schools. The women’s team was dominant as they beat 11 other schools to win the competition. That marks the second time this season that the women’s team has come in first for an invitational.
The women’s team not only won the competition but won it convincingly. In cross country, points are added up based on the position of a school’s top five runners, so the goal is to have the lowest score possible. The Brandeis women’s cross-country team had just 27 points. Wellesley College came in second and they had 25 more points than Brandeis. The reason why the Judges had such a low score was because they had five of their seven runners place in the top 10. No other school had more than two runners finish in the top 10. The Judges were led by senior Erin Magill ’22. Magill had a time of 18:41 and she came in second for the entire competition. This was Magill’s fastest 5k time of the season and her second fastest 5k time of her career. Just 26 seconds behind Magill was senior Natalie Hattan ’22. Like Magill, this was Hattan’s second fastest 5k time ever. Sophomore Juliette Intrieri ’24 was the next Brandeis student to finish as she finished in sixth place with a time of 19:31.4. This was Intrieri’s best placement ever. Freshman Kayla DiBenedetto ’25 and junior Bridget Pickard ’23 were the next of the top 10 runners to finish in the top 10 for Brandeis. The rest of the top seven runners from Brandeis were freshman Zada Forde ’25, who finished in 15th, and junior Victoria Morrongiello ’23 who finished 35th.
The men’s team also had success at the Keene State Invitational. Overall, the team finished in second place with 82 points, and they were 19 points ahead of Union College for third place. Senior Matthew Dribben ’22 led the team and came in third place overall with a time of 25:39.2. He was just 11 seconds behind second place. Sophomore Walter Tebbetts ’24 also finished in the top 10, placing seventh with a time of 26:26.4. This was Tebbetts’ fastest 8k time and highest placement of his career. The men’s cross-country team had two more runners finish in the top 20. These runners were junior Casey Brackett ’23 and freshman Daniel Frost ’25. Brackett finished 14th with a time of 26:40.9 and Frost finished 17th with a time of 26:51.1. Rounding out the rest of Brandeis’ top five runners were senior Jac Guerra ’22, sophomore Sam Kim ’24 and freshman Erik Lopez ’25. All three of these runners ended in the top fifty, as Guerra ended in 41st place, Kim ended in 45th and Lopez in 46th.
Both teams are looking to compete at the Connecticut College Invitational on Oct. 16. This is both teams’ last competition before the University Athletic Association (UAA) Championship in Rochester, NY on Oct. 30.
Editor’s Note: News Editor Victoria Morrongiello did not contribute to the writing or editing of this article.
