Bruins cross country traveled to Cary, North Carolina to race in the Adidas XC Challenge, one of the biggest meets in the country this week. NC State, the University of South Carolina, and Liberty University were amond the NCAA DI teams represented.

"We wanted to seize the opportunity today," Head Coach Ken Roach said. "Both the men's and women's teams faded slightly before the halfway point and had a hard time catching back up. Conditions were alright, but the course difficulty is still ahead of where our training is. The women managed a gritty season-best finish. The men put in a solid effort but were off their best today. We will continue to place ourselves at our threshold for improvement."

The men's race was first, and the starting gun was at 5:50 p.m. Today the Bruins were without a few of their runners due to sickness, so the five racers finished as the five team scorers. This was another 6k on the schedule for the men's team to prepare for the standard race distance of an 8k. The course presented some challenging areas that the Bruins had to overcome. Sophomore Jacob Doshier ran another strong race to lead the Bruins with a time of 20:35. Daniel Kyle came next with a strong closing effort of 22:31. In the three and four spots for the Bruins were Eoin Flynn and Joram Madrama who ran the majority of the race together. They finished with times of 23:00 and 23:05. Luke VanDenBerghe closed the race for the Bruins crossing the finish line at 24:18.

The women's 5k was supposed to start shortly after the men's race, but due to a lightning delay, it didn't start until 7:05. With the delay, the women's teams had very little time to warm up before the race. Despite the challenge, the Bruins still ran strong races. Laura Roland lead the way this week with a great time of 21:40. Kristen Dodds closed in shortly after her hitting a sub-22 mark of 21:58. Freshmen Olivia Reyes and Kailtyn Rodman crossed the finish line at 22:11 and 22:23. To round out the scoring for the women's team, freshman Arianna Hudson finished with a time of 23:22.

Full results can be seen here.

Now the Bruins have a couple of very important weeks of training before taking on another big meet. They race next at the Louisville Cross Country Classic on October 3 hosted by the University of Louisville.