GREENWICH, NY – The women's cross country team traveled to Washington County Fairgrounds to compete in the Empire 8 XC Championships, hosted by Russell Sage College. The weather held up, and conditions were fantastic for the championship race. The women ran the 7^th fastest team time in school history. In addition, Amanda Burrichter and Rachel Domaracki also ran the #3 and #5 fastest 6,000m times in school history. In the end, Houghton narrowed the gap in Nazareth, and held off Sage for a 3^rd place team finish.
 
Team Results:
St. John Fisher – 30
Nazareth - 61
Houghton – 75
Sage – 105
Utica - 156
 Alfred – 156
Keuka - 183
Hartwick – 196
 
"This women's group has been so impressive. It's the smallest team we've had since I've been here, but they run so hard, and have an extremely strong sense of team unity. Amanda and Rachel led in a strong way today. In big moments, you need your big time performers to step up. They did just that. Like the men, all but one of the girls ran personal bests, and we needed every bit of that. I did the math, and collectively the top five girls took 393 seconds off their personal bests. That's almost 80 seconds per runner. Enough said."
 
The race took off very fast, as the top pack of girls, including Amanda and Rachel went out und 6:00 for the first mile. Amanda made a move at a mile to hold comfortably in second. Rachel held in the chase pack and battled hard with 4-5 girls. Freshman Tabitha Clark held right around 22-24 throughout most of the race before a fast finish to 18^th. Ellie Kettinger and Phebe Grant finished out the Highlanders top 5.
 
"I was standing about 125 meters from the finish, and I was reading off their times, I could see the girls were surprised at what they were about to do. Cross country isn't about times, but today is a great day to quantify our hard work."
 
The Highlanders will race their top 7 runners at the NCAA Niagara XC Championships on 11/13, hosted by SUNY Geneseo.