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The Mens and Womens Cross Country teams performed this Saturday at the Open New Englands competition in Franklin Park, Boston. The weather was hot and the squads didnt run their best races;

thus, the results were slower than usual.

The Women were able to place 17th among Div. III teams at the meet, and ranked 36th place overall. The Men were able to fare better, placing 12th among other Div. III teams while earning the distinction of 31st overall. The Judges were still able to get valuable running under their feet and practice on the course that will host one of their most important races of the year, the UAA Championships.

Many of the rookie runners shined for the Women, as some of the top finishers were first-year teammates. Rookie Marie Lemay was the first Judge to cross the line with a time of 20 minutes and 11 seconds. This was good enough to earn her 113th place for the Judges. Ally Connolly 10 was the second runner from Brandeis to finish the 5 kilometer course, finishing with a time of 20 minutes and 38 seconds. This was enough to earn her 165th place. Teammate Beth Pisarik 10 finished with a time of just over 21 minutes to earn the team 204th place. The last Brandeis runners to score were Co-Captains Katy Agule 09 and Julia Alpaio 10. They finished close together and earned the team 215th and 221st place respectively.

The Mens team did not fare well as usual this weekend, as injuries left the squad without some of its most valuable runners. In addition, certain competitors ran nearly a minute slower than their regular times, hampering the teams success. Rookie Mekonen Gendebo was the first Judge to cross the line as he finished the eight kilometer race in 26 minutes and 46 seconds. This was good enough to place Genebo in the top 100 overall. Paul Norton 11 was the next Brandeis runner to finish as he cross the line, in just over 27 minutes. Rookie Paul Anastos was able to finish the race in just over 28 minutes, while Will Collins was the only non-first year to score, finishing the race in 182nd place. Rookie Ben Bray was the last Brandeis runner score, crossing the finish line with a time of 28 minutes and 42 seconds.

The Womens team was somewhat unhappy with its performance, but see that they can improve for future meets. Katy Agule 09 acknowledged that this was not one of the worst performances that the team has had.

Unfortunately, we had an off racing day on Saturday said Agule.. It was much hotter than any of us expected, and due to the lack of rain in the past couple of months, the course gave us a complete dirt bath.

She went on to state I think we're all in great condition and we've all been working very hard. Agule also said that the team was looking forward to competing in Albany this weekend, and having a better race at Franklin Park later in the season.

The Mens team was overall unhappy with its recent performance, and sees space to improve upon in future meets. Norton emphasized that many of the teams best runners were not competing this Saturday.

The fact that we were sitting out our top guys, explained Norton and the rough weather created the perfect storm for low team morale.

Norton went on to explain that their upcoming meets will probably yield better results.

We will be running more of our better runners next time, he said. Next week, we will be working on building for UAAs.

Both of the squads compete in Albany, N.Y. this upcoming weekend and then take some time off before competing at the UAA Championships, hosted by Brandeis on the last weekend of October.