The past two weeks have been busy but successful for the men and women’s cross-country teams as their season concluded on Saturday.  Both the men and women sent one of their players to compete at the NCAA Division III National Championships in Louisville, Kentucky. For the women, Emily Bryson ’19 earned the second All-American honor of her career at Nationals, as she finished 24th overall. For the men, Ryan Stender ’18 just barely missed his first All-American award, finishing in 37th. The week before, the teams participated in the NCAA New England Regional Championships in Westfield, Massachusetts where the men finished 9th overall and the women 6th.  On the women’s side, Bryson improved immensely from the previous season, as she finished a commendable seven spots ahead of last year’s race. She came in a respectable 31st the year before and improved her time by an amazing 34 seconds with a time of 21:09.9. After the race, Bryson explained her mentality: “I just kept thinking of all my girls, my team; that’s all I thought about. I gave it everything.”

On the men’s side, Stender managed to finish 37th overall in his first Nationals appearance, barely coming short of an All-American award by 1.8 seconds. He finished the eight-kilometer race in 24:57.7. Among New England competitors, he finished sixth and fourth among all UAA runners. 

In the previous week, the teams had very strong races at the Division III New England Regional Championships in Westfield. 

The women had a dominant performance as they finished sixth out of 59 teams. 

Bryson led the way for the women, finishing 15th overall with a six-kilometer time of 21:44.37. With this impressive finish, she earned herself an All-New England honor for the second straight year. Her time improved 20 seconds from her rookie season’s New England Regional race.  Maddie Hollins ’17 also earned an All-New England honor during this meet with a time of 22:11.36, her third career regional award. She finished 32nd overall. 

On the men’s side, the Judges finished in ninth place, five places better than in 2015. Stender was first to finish the eight-kilometer race for the Judges, coming in 11th place with a time of 25:00.91. He earned his first career all-regional honor in this race. Mitchell Hutton ’18 finished second for Brandeis and 23rd overall, also earning his first career regional honor. 

 The Judges have managed to close out in winning fashion with superb team running at Regionals.