NORTHFIELD, Vt. – For the first time since 2018, Emmanuel has claimed the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Women's Cross Country Championship, winning Sunday's conference title at the Norwich Cross Country Course. The Saints knock off five-time defending champions, the Colby-Sawyer Chargers, after Emmanuel amassed 55 points in the 6k event.
The Saints were led by a pair of GNAC First Team honorees in senior Sydney Gonzalez and junior Kendall Newton. Gonzalez scored a fourth-place finish, saving her best race for last with a 6k PR of 24:24.7. Newton followed one place behind, coming in fifth, with a PR of time of 24:29.8.
Senior Julia Kurthy earned a spot on the GNAC Second Team, thanks to a 14th-place finish with a time of 25:30.1, yet another 6k PR on the afternoon. First-year Molly Hough added a 16th-place finish and a PR of 25:39.3. Hough was sixth among rookie runners on the afternoon.
The final counting score of the afternoon belonged to junior Mia DeMore, who scored a 19th-place finish with her PR time of 25:55.8. DeMore capped off an afternoon of counting scores that were all PR's for the Saints in a 6k race.
Emmanuel won the championship by four points, as second-place Colby-Sawyer finished the event with 59 points. It's the closest GNAC Women's Cross Country Championship finish since 2016, when Norwich and Simmons both finished with 50 points, resulting in a tiebreaking win for the Cadets.
In the men's race, the Saints finished in third for their best finish since the 2018 championship. Four of the seven GNAC Second Team runners went to Emmanuel as juniors Luke Bullock, Ryan Bausch, and Nicholas Ware placed ninth, 10th, and 11th, respectively. Sophomore Alex Mazzarelli scored a 13th place finish for his GNAC Second Team honor.
Saint Joseph's of Maine (46 points) beat out Norwich by two points to win the men's title. The Saints finished with 63, claiming the third spot by 45 points over Lasell.
The cross country season resumes on Saturday, Nov. 15, with the NCAA Division III East Regional Championship, hosted at Hopkinton Fairgrounds in Hopkinton, N.H.
