The Judges have earned the no. 25 national ranking from the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association and are led strongly by senior captains Emily Bryson ’19, Julia Bryson ’19 and Meaghan Barry ’19. Finishing first and 13th, the women’s and men’s cross country teams held a strong presence at the UMass Dartmouth Cross Country Invitational this past weekend.
For the third consecutive time in four years, the women’s team won the team competition with 56 points and placed five runners in the Top 25. Emily Bryson had an exciting performance, winning the 5k individually with a time of 17:54.6. Not only did she place 20 seconds faster than the WPI runner up, but this was her second fastest time at the course by four seconds.
Joining Bryson were Rookie Jac Guerra in fourth place, Julia Bryson ’19 in 12th place, Danielle Bertaux ’20 in 16th place, and Niamh Kenney in 23rd place in her first race. Guerra had a remarkable 28 second improvement from her collegiate debut at the Wellesley Invitational just a few weeks ago. Senior Meaghan Barry ’19 also had an impressive performance, placing two seconds behind Kenney and improving her personal best by two seconds. Guerra is part of the “great group of freshmen” that Bryson claimed have already had such a positive impact on their team thus far. Barry has high hopes for the team’s future potential and working together this season, especially after “coming out winning the meet overall at the first competitive invitational.”
As for the men, they put up a fight to take home 13th by securing 411 points. Sophomore Josh Lombardo ’21 finished with the best time for the Judges, coming in 44th place at 26.25.9, a 14 place and 30 second improvement from his first run of the year. Not far behind him was rookie Matthew Driben ’22 in 45th place, Dan Curley ’20 in 87th place, and rookie Simon Powley ’22 in 119th place in his first collegiate race.
Both teams will race again on Sept. 29 in Brunswick, Maine for the Bowdoin Invitational, where the New England Division II Championships will also be held later in the season on Saturday, Nov. 10.
