This weekend on Sunday Oct. 31, the Bison cross country team ran in the Patriot League Championship. The women finished fourth that day while the men’s team finished sixth overall. 

Brendan Mellitt ’24 finished best among the Bison men, placing 22nd in a field of 111. Navy won the meet with 20 points, followed by Army and Boston University. Despite finishing in sixth place, the Bison were not far behind the rest, placing only six points away from fourth place. 

Owen Chase ’22 placed 27th overall, followed by Noah Martin ’23 in 31st.  Martin improved 17 places since the last Patriot League meet in 2019 at Colgate.  

“The meet was a tougher one for the team, we didn’t quite perform as well as we wanted to. Even so, we still gave it everything we had and that’s all you can do, nothing more nothing less. We’re excited to be able to regroup and have another chance at beating a lot of these teams at the regional meet in a couple weeks,” Mellitt said. 

Ashlyn Ramos ‘22 earned runner-up honors, finishing second overall in the race among the women. She fell to Army by a second, who took the individual title. Her run was an exciting one, moving up all the way from ninth place, where she competed with the Army runner for the final portion of the race. She also earned her third-straight First Team All-Patriot League nomination on Sunday, becoming one of seven Bison to earn three of these nominations in her career. 

Emily Deschler ’22 finished 28th, followed by Lauren Trapani ’25, who finished 29th. Karly Forker ’22 was another notable runner this Sunday, finishing 32nd place and improving drastically from her last Patriot League Championship run, in which she finished 85th overall. 

“Our team showed great strength and perseverance at the 2021 Patriot League Cross Country Championship. We had a positive team mentality heading into the meet, and everyone gave it their all from start to finish. We gained a lot of momentum in the last mile and finished stronger than we started. The sea of orange cheering for us throughout the course was absolutely incredible as the majority of the cross country and track and field team came to the meet to support us. It was definitely a day I will never forget. I feel very blessed to be a Bison!” Deschler said.

The Orange and the Blue were favored to finish fifth this time around, so finishing fourth was an accomplishment. Both the men and the women will play in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Meet on Friday, Nov. 12 at Lehigh University.