Although none of the Judges' cross country runners qualified for the NCAA championships, many can say they ended the year running faster than at any other point in the season.Brandeis got personal-best performances from several runners at the New England Division III championships last Saturday. The men's team finished in ninth place out of 47 teams, while the women's team finished 18th out of 47 squads.

"The finish was a bit disappointing, but I think it was a pretty good day," Tim Condon '08 said. "A lot of our guys [set personal records], so it was a nice way to finish off the season."

Amherst College won the meet, edging Williams College by a single point.

Despite the strong performances, no Brandeis runner qualified for the NCAA championships. Mekonen Gendebo '11, fresh off clinching the University Athletic Association Rookie of the Year award Oct. 27, came closest, but a 21st-place time of 25 minutes, 20 seconds missed the mark by a mere seven seconds.

"[Gendebo] ran awesome," coach John Evans said. "Being the second freshman to finish is a great achievement."

Though he failed to qualify for Nationals, Gendebo still put forth his best effort of the season. His time was 22 seconds faster than it was at the UAA Championships, and it marked the third straight time that Gendebo ran faster than he did in the previous meet. For his efforts, Gendebo was named an all-New England performer.

Condon, in his final college race, finished second on the team and 44th overall with a time of 25:45. It was easily Condon's fastest time of the season, but the second team all-UAA performer last year never got into a rhythm this season after a knee injury kept him out for the entire offseason and the first half of the year.

"[Condon] didn't start training until August, so you're talking about nine months where he wasn't running," Evans said. "Missing nine months is a long time, and if you miss that much time, you aren't going to be at the level that you want to be."

Matt Jennings '09 finished third on the team and 50th overall with a time of 25:49, while Mike Stone '09 and Paul Norton '11 rounded out the Judges' scoring with 64th- and 81st-place overall finishes, respectively.

On the women's side, Ally Connolly '09 had a strong end to the season, finishing with a personal-best time of 23:37. Connolly said she didn't think she did anything too differently in this race, but admitted she had to push herself toward the end of the race.

"I felt like I had earned the right to run well because I had trained so hard over the summer and done a lot of workouts this year," she said. "I was thinking a lot about that during the race, especially when I was getting tired."

Marie Lemay '11 and Hannah Lindholm '11 closed their rookie campaigns with 105th- and 117th-place overall finishes, respectfully, while captain Katy Agule '09 and Emily Terrin '08 finished in 126th and 136th place, respectively.

Young players fueled the efforts of both teams throughout the season. The men's squad had high hopes, but injuries to Condon and John Guilinger '08, as well as the preseason transfer of Brian McDonald '10 robbed the team of three of its most experienced runners. Still, the emergence of Gendebo provided a silver lining to the season, while Jennings, Stone, Norton and a host of other rookies are all set to return.

"We just relied on too many freshmen this year," Evans said. "It's hard to say whether it was a good season or a bad season; it was just a strange season."

The women's team relied on several young players all season, and they developed throughout the year, finishing with strong times towards the end. Terrin is the only key runner set to graduate this spring, as Connolly, Lemay, Lindholm and Agule will all return a year more experienced.

"For us, being a really young team, we ended on a positive note with many of us having personal records," Agule said. "Next year, we're going to improve drastically, especially with our freshmen being done with their first college season."

Evans said that while this fall was not one of the team's most successful ones, the rookie runners, particularly Gendebo, Norton, Lindholm and Lemay, provide the program with a lot of promise for the future.

"All the freshmen have shown they are going to be really good in the next few years," Evans said. "The program is on the upswing.