THE BASICS:

- Location: Northampton, Mass. (Smith College)

- The Lead: The No. 3 MIT men's cross country team kept its streak of NEWMAC Championships alive with the Engineers' 25th-straight title on Saturday afternoon. With the victory, the defending national champs is still the only program to have ever won a NEWMAC title.

HOW IT HAPPENED:

- MIT had 24 athletes compete in the event, and took eight of the top-10 spots with 12 different athletes earning NEWMAC All-conference honors.

- Graduate Student Lowell Hensgen (Raleigh, N.C.) improved upon his third place performance last season to come away with the NEWMAC individual title and NEWMAC Athlete of the Year honors, his first time earning the honor. With his first place, 24:49.3 finish, Hensgen also took home NEWMAC All-Conference honors for the third time in his career. Hensgen averaged under a five minute mile (4:59.6) in the race, the lone athlete to do so.

- The Engineers nearly swept the top-3 spots with seniors Sam Acquaviva (Newburyport, Mass.) taking second place in a time of 24:56.8 and Vedang Lad (Plainsboro, N.J.) earning fourth place in 25:04.4.

- Places 6-11 were filled with Engineers as juniors Jacob Hansen (Bountiful, Utah), Henry Hardart (Annapolis, Md.), and Pablo Arroyo (Richardson, Texas) finished 6-7-8 with times of 25:16.8, 25_28.1 and 25:30.2 respectively.

- Coming across in ninth place is first year Yichen Sun (Chapel Hill, N.C.) who captured NEWMAC Rookie of the Year honors as the first freshman to cross the finish line in a time of 25:31.0. Sun becomes the 22nd MIT runner overall and 13th straight to earn Rookie of the Year accolades.

- Following Sun was his classmate Jaxon Miller (Goshen, Ind.) who rounded out the top-10 with a time of 25:35.9 while senior Matthew Schofield (Shorewood, Ill.) took 11th in 25:40.7.

- Last year's Rookie of the Year Jake Cobb (West Deptford, N.J.) finished 13th (26:05.0) while fellow sophomore Samir Amin (Olympia, Wash.) took 14th (26:07.5) and junior Sam Coutts (Pacific Grove, Calif.) wrapped up the MIT All-Conference finishers with a 15th place, 26:11.8 finish.
 
- Junior Pau Ilerbaig-Bajona (Toronto, Canada), senior Cameron Kleiman (Austin, Texas) and junior Carlos Villa (Wadsworth, Ill. ) took 19th, 20th and 21st places with times of 26:36.9, 26:42.5 and 26:49.9 respectively.

- The duo of sophomore Ziyad Hassan (Ashburn, Va.) and junior Simon Opsahl (Redlands, Calif.) finished 23rd (27:09.3) and 24th (27:27.9) while senior Ellery Rajagopal (Harrison, N.Y.) rounded out the top-30 with a time of 27:32.5.

- Sophomore Reece Shuttleworth (Arlington, Va., 27:58.5) and first year Nate Martinez (Thompson's Station, Tenn., 28:00.6) netted 37th and 38th place finishes while first years Hunter Miller (Greencastle, Ind., 28:24.2) and David Whitaker (Northville, Mich., 28:26.1) finished 47th and 48th. First year Ayman Noreldaim (Iowa City, Iowa) rounded out the pack of Engineers with a 56th place, 29:09.1 performance. 

UP NEXT:

- The Engineers return to action on Saturday, November 11th for the NCAA East Regional Championship that will be held at the Hopkinton state fairgrounds. The race is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. 


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