Blue Cross Country Takes Second at NEWMAC Championships

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. -- Led by a seventh place finish from Priyanka Fouda, Wellesley College cross country ran to second place at the 2014 New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Cross Country Championships at Smith College. It is the sixth consecutive season that Wellesley has finished as runner-up at the NEWMAC Championships.

Fouda finished the 5K course with a time of 18:52, as both she and Taylor Bickford earned NEWMAC All-Conference honors thanks to their top-14 finishes. Bickford recorded a time of 19:00, placing tenth.

All five of Wellesley's scoring runners came in the top-25 as Mary Keenan finished 16th with a time of 19:11, while Nicole Chui came in 20th at 19:32 and Alice Zhou came in 24th at 19:54. Edie Sharon and Sonja Cwik also made strong showings, earning 28th and 31st place with times of 20:05 and 20:10, respectively. 

Wellesley's strong showing helped them earn a total of 77 points as only MIT, at 15 points, had a lower total. The 2014 NEWMAC Champion Engineers took all of the top-five finishes in the race, led by overall winner Sarah Quinn's time of 18:22.  

Wheaton (120 points), WPI (128) and Mount Holyoke (130) rounded out the top-five team finishers, followed by host Smith (146), Springfield (154), Coast Guard (186), Babson (245), Clark (284) and Emerson (329). 

Blue Cross Country will be in action again next weekend when they travel to Stanley Park in Westfield, Mass. for the 2014 ECAC Championship.