The men and women’s cross country team started off its 2015 season this past Saturday at the Roger Williams Invitational at Colt State Park in Rhode Island, hosted by Roger Williams University. 

Both teams performed exceptionally in the five-kilometer run, as the men came in first out of 14 teams, while the women placed second out of 15 squads.

The men and women both finished with a total of 40 points, and five of the top-17 finishes came from the Judges’ side. 

The women’s team came up just short of capturing the title, falling to Wellesley College by 11 points. The Judges were followed in the top five teams by Salve Regina College, Bridgewater State University and Emmanuel College. 

Emily Bryson ’19 was the top runner for the squad in her first collegiate race ever. She finished in third overall with an overall time of 19 minutes and 15.75 seconds, just five seconds shy of the race winner from Wellesley.  

Bryson stated that she wanted to simply “run the race at a pace that I was comfortable at.  It was my first collegiate race, so I was just taking in the experience of being a collegiate athlete who was representing Brandeis for the first time.” Maddie Dolins ’17 completed the race in 19:21.74, which was a little less than six seconds behind Bryson and gave her a fourth place finish. Dolins has now finished first or second for the Judges in every single 5K she has run in the last three years. 

The third Brandeis runner to finish in the top 10 on the women’s side was Lydia McCaleb ’17, who ran a sixth place finish with a time of 19:42.04.

About the race as a whole, Bryson commented, that “Our team's second place finish was very exciting.  I think that it will give us more confidence going into some of our bigger meets and shows just how deep our team is this season.”

The star of last year’s indoor track and field season, Kelsey Whitaker ’16, ran a time of 20:11.69 to an 11th place finish. 

Other top competitors for the Judges were Maggie Hensel ’16, Julia Bryson ’19 and Ashley Piccirillo-Horan ’17. 

Hensel finished in 17th place with a time of 20:33.88 while Bryson ran the five kilometers  in 20:32.03 seconds for 18th place. Piccirillo-Horan rounded out the top Judges with a time of 20:54.60, which was good enough  for 27th place.    

The men’s team’s 40 points were three ahead of the runner-up, Franklin Pierce University. Rounding out the top five were Wentworth Institute of Technology, the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and Bridgewater State University. 

Ryan Stender ’18 was the top competitor for the men, finishing third overall with a time of 16:13.  

Stender finished one second behind the winning runner from Gordon College. Matt Doran ’17 ran the race in a time of 16:18 for a fourth place finish. 

Sophomores were the stars for the Judges on the day. 

In addition to Stender, Mitchell Hutton ’18 and Brian Sheppard ’18 both finished in the top 10. Hutton ran the race in 16:33 for eighth place, while Sheppard finished in 10th place with a time of 16:37. Roger Lacroix ’18 ran a race of 16:58 for 15th place, and Russel Santons ’18 finished in 20th place with a time of 17:10.

Completing the strong finishes for the Judges was Max Whitmore ’18, whose time of 17:13 was good for 23rd place.

All six high quality finishes from the sophomores were promising. After good starts to their collegiate careers last seasons,  the group looks to make their mark this coming season, with Stender leading the pack.

The Judges can look to this collective to lead them for the next few years to come.

“I think that the team is very strong this season and has the potential to do really well at the rest of our meets, so hopefully we can continue to have strong performances from everyone and perform even better throughout the season,” Bryson said, 

The squads will run next at the UMass Dartmouth Invitational on Sept. 19. 

The meet will feature  regional foes  ,Bentley University, Lasell College and Babson College.