On another cold and rainy day, the Bison women’s and men’s cross country teams raced in the Mid-Atlantic Regional cross country meet at Penn State on Nov. 9. Overall, the women’s team finished eighth among 30 teams while the men’s team finished 12th out of 24 teams.

The women’s cross country team placed highest among the other Patriot League teams competing, while the men’s team finished second behind Navy among conference teams competing. The men’s team finished third two weeks ago at the conference championships, which makes their performance this weekend an improvement.

The breakout star for the Bison women’s runners was Colleen Buckley ’19, who had won the individual title at the Patriot League Championships. Buckley finished the best for the Bison in 19th out of 199 runners at the regional meet. Her time in the 6K race was 21:42 minutes, around 30 seconds behind the first place runner, earning herself All-Region honors as well.

Rounding out the top runners for the Orange and Blue was Ashley Blair ’21, who finished in 36th place for the women’s runners. She was deemed the most improved runner by head coach Kevin Donner. The other women’s runners were Payton Capes ’21 (51st), Margaret Thomson ’19 (64th), Jenna Farmer ’19 (67th), Lauren Gronbeck ’20 (81st), and rounding out the Bison finishers was Nora Bennett ’22 (145th). The women’s team had a successful season and will bring a lot of experienced runners back for next season.

For the second straight postseason meet, Brian Dengler ’20 was the men’s team’s top performer. He finished 40th out of 168 runners with a time of 32:19 minutes on the 10k course. Chad Sussman ’19 was not too far behind Dengler, finishing 54th with a time of 32:39 minutes.

Fellow Bison runners in the line-up include Brendan O’Toole ’22 (71st), Jacob Stupak ’20 (76th), Connor McMenamin ’21 (89th), Brendan McGill ’20 (111th), and finishing last for the Bison was Evan Minor ’21 (130th). Donner said he was proud with the culture that the men’s program created this year of hard work and grinding out runs.

Both the men’s and women’s teams displayed great performances throughout the year and will look to build on their cross country success during the indoor track and field season.