The cross country teams fought through a depleted roster and nagging injuries to capture fifth and sixth place for the men's and women's sides respectively at this Saturday's UAA championships in Rochester, N.Y. Dan Crespin '05 and Matt Griego '05 helped their team bring home the highest ranking in four years, with Crespin taking second place by running an impressive 26:18.6 over eight kilometers and Griego nabbing ninth with a time of 26:41.3. Their commanding performances were helped out by formidable efforts from Tim Condon '08, who finished fifth among first-year runners.The women's side also ran an excellent race, being narrowly edged out for fifth by the University of Rochester. Megan Bisceglia '07 and Sarah Romain '06 led the team, garnering 22nd and 23rd places respectively with Romain coming in six seconds behind Bisceglia's time of 26:18.6.

"I'm proud of all of them," Evans said. "They haven't done a lot of training recently, but they really fought the whole way."

This is only the second time the squads have posted a team score this season, but there has already been improvement. Evans is pleased but is looking for more progress, citing health problems and a small roster for not being able to achieve quite what he had hoped for so far this season.

"On the men's side we just don't have enough people so we came down to a real small squad," Evans said.

Evans also pointed to the loss of all-American Ryan Parker '06 as a set-back.

"He would have given us a little depth and so that left us kind of short," Evans said.

Evan hopes future recruiting efforts will help bolster his strong core of runners, and allow for inevitable injuries and illness like those sustained by Peter Vigneron '07, Aaron Skolnik '05 and other teammates. Vigneron's absence weakened the men's side, depriving them of a runner Evans anticipated being in the top three at UAAs.

"The next two years are going to be vital [in] that we get more recruits and really build the program up," Evans said.

The women's side boasts a very young team, mostly first-years and sophomores, which gives Evans great confidence for the future

"When they get a little bit older and a little stronger and get more people on the team we'll start moving up the ladder in the UAA," Evans said.

For now, Evans is hoping for the team to perform better that last year in the regionals on Nov. 13.

"Hopefully we'll have a couple people qualify for nationals, especially on the men's side," Evans said.