Paul Norton '11 had the highest finish by a Brandeis men's cross country runner in 10 years, claiming All-American status as seventh place out of 276 runners at the NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships held at Baldwin-Wallace College in Cleveland last Saturday. Norton's impressive finish paced the men's team to a 24th-place finish in the 32-team field. Running as an individual in the women's meet as the only Brandeis representative on the women's side, Grayce Selig '11 finished in 171st place out of 280 runners.Norton led the team's effort as he had all season long. The captain finished the 8-kilometer course with a time of 25 minutes, 37.8 seconds. Though he finished short of the time of race winner Ricky Flynn, a senior from Lynchburg College who finished with a time of 25:09.8, Norton finished less than 6 seconds behind the second-place finisher. Norton's finish was a 32-spot improvement over his finish last season, when he took 39th place. He was the second finisher among New England runners this season and the top University Athletic Association competitor.

After barely missing All-American status last year, Norton easily earned the honors in his third season on the team. He finished less than 3 seconds off of the 35th-place cutoff a year ago, but was more than 30 seconds ahead of the 35th-place finisher last Saturday.

"To finish so close last season made this year's results so much more satisfying," Norton said.

He credited a stronger start this season with his improvement.

"Last year, I was too tentative and was probably in 100th place at the first mile marker, so I told myself to get a quick start this year and I was able to keep running strong until the finish line," he said.

Norton was the first All-American men's cross country runner since Samson Yohannes '00, who also finished in seventh place at nationals in 1999. Overall, Norton is Brandeis' 28th All-American men's cross country runner in school history, bringing the University's total to six-highest among NCAA schools

For the second year in a row, Marc Boutin '12 and Chris Brown '12 were the next two runners to cross the finish line for Brandeis at the National Championships. Boutin finished in 117th place at 26:50.04, a 12-spot improvement over his campaign in his rookie season last year.

Brown finished 5.5 seconds later in 136th place. The finish was a 19-spot improvement from last year.

In his appearance at nationals, Devon Holgate '11 was the squad's fourth runner to finish with a 191st-place finish at 27:28.4.

Kerwin Vega '11 was the men's final scorer, as his time of 27:58.8 gave him a 241st-place finish.

The team's sixth- and seventh-place runners were Dan Anastos '11 and Ben Bray '11. They finished with times of 28:34 and 29:20.7, respectively.

On the women's side, Selig finished the 6-kilometer event with a time of 24:13. She qualified for nationals as an individual after posting a career-best time in the New England Regional Championships Nov. 14, a result that earned her All-New England status.

"We didn't have a team there competing, so [Selig] really didn't come in with any expectations, so she really just went out there to see what would happen," Norton said. "[Selig] did a great job of qualifying, and she will come back strong next season."

All competitors this weekend had to deal with difficult running conditions because the course contained hills of varying heights. Recent weather conditions also caused the entire course to be either muddy or very soft, two causes of difficult running conditions.

"We ran through the course [last] Friday to get an idea of what it would be like, so we were anticipating a lot of hills," Norton said.

Norton also felt that the sloppy conditions at both the UAA and New England Regional meets "really helped prepare us for [Nationals]."

Despite dropping four spots from a 20th-place finish a year ago, the men's squad has reason to be very optimistic about next season.

All seven of its runners from nationals, including its newly crowned All-American, will return for next season.

"We were a little disappointed to do worse than we did last year, but to be disappointed with just qualifying really shows how far the program has come," Norton said. "It wasn't the greatest season, but it was really a great learning experience, and hopefully it will set us up for a great next season," he added.