After missing last year's Open New England Championships, men's cross country runner Paul Norton '11 was anxious to improve on his 116th-place finish in 2007. He managed that Saturday in a big way.Norton's sixth-place finish in the meet paced the men's team to an 11th-place finish, its best result since also finishing 11th in 1998. His time of 24 minutes, 46 seconds also made him the second-fastest Division III runner and placed him just 5 seconds away from a top-three performance. The finish was also the highest by a Brandeis runner at New Englands since the NEICAAA Web site began tracking such stats in 1995.

Norton paced the team for much of last year and finished strongly at Nationals. He finished in 39th there and was less than 3 seconds away from being an All-American.

Norton has also been the team's top runner thus far this year.

He finished third (second among Division III runners) at the UMass-Dartmouth Invitational earlier in the year. His time of 24:43 was also a personal best for him.

"Having my personal best right before really gave me some confidence for this meet. I knew that I was in shape to do well," Norton said.

Originally from Amherst, Mass., Norton thought that the local atmosphere helped him at the competition.

"It was kind of a low-pressure opportunity for me," Norton said. "It wasn't a conference championship, and I knew the course from high school, so I just wanted to run a solid race and set myself up for good races down the road."

Coach John Evans spoke highly of Norton.

"He ran an unbelievable race, but it's not that we didn't expect it.," Evans said. "He's in great shape, and has been running terrifically recently.