The Brandeis men's and women's cross country teams had mixed outings at last Saturday's University Athletic Association Championships in Cleveland. In team play, the men's team was fifth out of eight teams while the women's team was fourth, but both squads' individual performances highlighted the event.Paul Norton '11 finished second out of 80 runners, and co-captain Ally Connolly '10 was 14th out of 81 runners to each earn all-UAA honors at the event.

Defending men's UAA champion and national champion No. 7 New York University won the men's race while No. 7 Washington University in St. Louis won the women's race.

The 26th-ranked men's team was the fourth-ranked UAA squad entering the meet but finished behind unranked WashU, which took fourth place behind No. 12 Emory University and No. 19 Carnegie Mellon University, which tied for second place.

Norton finished the 8-kilometer course in 26 minutes, 19.80 seconds, 13 seconds behind the overall winner, NYU senior Zach Maher. Norton's placement was the best by a Brandeis runner in the UAA Championship in five years, when Dan Crespin '05 was also the runner-up in 2004.

Norton also earned first-team UAA honors for the first time in his career after earning second-team all-conference honors last year with a 15th-place finish. Still, despite his improvement from last year's race, Norton felt he could have run this race better and cited cramps that hindered his effort.

"I was a little disappointed," he said. "I thought I could win this race, but I just did not perform as well I could have. I had cramping problems midway through the race, so that definitely hurt."

Other notable finishes on the men's side were Chris Brown '12, who finished in 19th place with a time of 27:09.8, 50 seconds behind Norton. Marc Boutin '12, who won rookie of the year honors at last year's UAA Championships, finished with the 13th-best time of 27:36.01, 11 spots down from last year's impressive finish. Dan Anastos '11 also improved his standing from last year's event, moving up 21 spots with a finish of a 27:39.92 for a 33rd-place finish.

Norton said that the team expected to finish better than it did and that the course was particularly difficult because it rained the night before.

"It was a pretty disappointing day. We just didn't perform to our potential," Norton said. "It poured the day before, so the field was muddy the second you walked onto it. It was a complete slopfest. But you can't blame it all on the conditions. We just did not handle it as well as the other teams."

The women's team was the fourth highest-ranked UAA team entering the meet at No. 26 as well. No. 11 Case Western Reserve University and No. 28 NYU finished ahead of the Judges in second and third places, respectively.

Connolly earned an all-UAA second team honor with a time of 24:17.2. She finished 1:30 behind the winner, junior Taryn Surtees from WashU.

Connolly was happy with her individual performance, but like Norton she expressed similar disappointment with the overall team standings despite the squad's improvement from last year's seventh-place finish.

"I'm really proud of my finish, but I mean as a team we didn't finish as well as we wanted to," Connolly said. "While I'm excited about my finish, it's hard to get that excited because we didn't finish so well."

Connolly's finish was 40 places higher than her finish last season, and her all-UAA honor was the first a Brandeis women's runner had earned since Camille Stevens-Rumann '07 did so in 2006.

Other notable finishes for the women included Alyssa Pisarik '12 who finished in 17th place, right behind Connolly, in 24:22.6. Grayce Selig '11 finished 20th overall with a time of 24:30.8.

Connolly also echoed Norton's comments on the difficulty of the course.

"It was the hardest course we've run," she said. "[It was] much more hilly and muddy than [what] we are used to."

Despite the disappointing team finishes, Norton said the results of this meet were important for the upcoming NCAA Regional Championships Nov. 14. Norton said that the results of the UAA Championships and the Regional Championships are significant in determining the teams' standings and berths at the NCAA National Championships Nov. 21.

"It was a good wake-up call," Norton said. "It's a reminder that no matter what level of fitness or training, it doesn't matter unless you perform on the day of [the meet].