Last week on Friday, Sept. 1, both the men’s and women’s Brandeis Judges cross-country teams traveled to Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts to compete in the annual Wellesley Invitational against their host as well as Mount Holyoke College.

In the women’s race, five of the top 10 runners at the 5K were from the Judges: Juliette Intrieri ’24, Zada Forde ’25, Lizzy Reynolds ’24, Ella Warkentine ’26 and Sadie Harrow ’27.

Intrieri led the way for the Judges with an overall fourth place. Her time, at 19:28.4, was only 20 seconds behind the winning time from Wellesley, as well as a 13-second improvement from her time at Wellesley last year. Forde took fifth place with a time of 19:29.8, only 1.4 seconds behind Intrieri. Reynolds, team captain, finished in seventh place with a time of 19:52.4. Warkentine finished eighth with a time of 19:59.7, a colossal improvement of one minute and 22 seconds from her time at this race last year. Harrow took ninth place with a time of 20:03.7, wrapping up the Judges’ top five. Overall, the Judges women’s team had a spread of 35 seconds in their top five, a 50-second lead over Wellesley’s.

The men’s team, meanwhile, had no competition at the meet. The runners who took the top five spots in the 5K race were Hugh Licklider ’27, Willem Goff ’24, Gabriel Levin ’27, Henry Nguyen ’25 and Lucas Dia ’25.

Licklider, in his first race as part of the Judges, was able to arrive in first place with a time of 16:03.9. In second place was Goff, team captain, with a time of 16:09.5. This was Goff’s final Wellesley race, and he surpassed his time at last year’s race by 23 seconds. In third place was Levin, for whom this race was also his first with the Judges. He finished with a successful time of 16:18.2. Nguyen and Dia took fourth and fifth place respectively, the former ending with a time of 16:30.6 and the latter with a time of 16:38.9. Overall, the men’s team had a 50-second spread among the top five runners.

The Judges’ cross country team will next travel to Williams College on Sept. 23.

Editor’s note: Sports editor Calli Morvay ’26 did not participate in the writing or editing of this article.