Women’s and men’s cross country teams win regional championships
Both the MIT men’s and women’s cross country teams won the New England Regional Championship at Westfield State University on Saturday, earning automatic bids to the Division III Cross Country Championships this Saturday in Louisville, Kentucky.
The women’s team was led by Megan McCandless ’20, who finished second overall and continued her amazing debut season. Leandra Zimmerman ’19 and Maryann Gong ’17 finished in 11th and 12th place, respectively. Christina Wicker ’17 and Mary Eccles ’18 rounded out the top five for the Engineers, finishing in 18th and 25th, respectively. The Engineers narrowly edged out Williams and Tufts to take home the championship.
The men’s team was spearheaded by the duo of Matthew Deyo ’16 and Dennis Maloney ’19, as they finished second and fourth overall, respectively. Rory Beyer ’17 had a strong race coming back from injury and finished in 13th place. The top five was rounded out by Ben Freed ’18 and Daniel Weiss ’19 with finishes of 43rd and 48th place.
This gave the Engineers 110 points, which tied Williams for first place. However, the Engineers won the head-to-head via the tie-breaker. Because the first three runners for MIT (2nd, 4th, and 13th) finished ahead of the first three runners for Williams (6th, 12th, and 28th), MIT won the tie-breaker and were crowned champions.