MARLBOROUGH, Mass. -- The NEWMAC has announced the 2026 Women's Cross Country major awards and MIT head coach Dan Schuman and the MIT women's cross country coaching staff have been named the 2026 NEWMAC Women's Coaching Staff of the Year, while NEWMAC individual champion Liv Girand was named Athlete of the Year and sophomore Jordan Lacsamana was recognized with the NEWMAC Women's Cross Country Laurels of Academic Excellence.
Schuman and his staff of Julie Heyde, Ben Waruch, Jake Cobb, Ella Whinney and Lance Nicholls earned NEWMAC Women's Cross Country Coaching Staff of the Year honors after leading the Engineers to their 19th straight conference championship title. This is the third straight year MIT was recognized with Women's Cross Country Coaching Staff of the Year accolades.
At the conclusion of this year's championship meet, Girand was recognized as the NEWMAC Women's Cross Country Runner of the Year for finishing in first place overall. Girand is the 11th in program history to earn Women's Runner of the Year honors since the NEWMAC's inception in 1998 and first since Kate Sanderson took the title in 2024. This fall, Girand ran a 6-kilometer time of 22:17.6 to top the field of 134 runners by nearly 12 seconds.
Lacsamana earned the NEWMAC Women's Cross Country Laurels of Academic Excellence Award as the honor is given to the student-athlete with the highest GPA, who finishes in the top-40 at the Women's Cross Country Championships. Lacsamana sports a 4.00 grade point average as a brain and cognitive science and biology major at MIT. She is the second MIT women's cross country runner to earn the award as she joined Gillian Roeder on the all-time list.
Next up, MIT will run at the 2026 NCAA DIII East Regional Championship at the Wainwright Recreation Complex in South Portland, Maine on Saturday, November 14.
