After sweeping the Vermont Fall Foliage Invite last month, the Binghamton men’s and women’s cross country teams traveled back up to St. Albans, Vermont this past Saturday to compete in the America East Championships. While Binghamton failed to defend the women’s cross-country title, both squads earned third-place finishes in the eight-team field.

“It just shows consistency,” said Binghamton head coach Annette Acuff. “We’ve been able to do that over the years and stay very consistently competitive within the conference, and that’s always our goal. We do the best that we can with what we have to work with, resource wise, and I’m just really happy for the kids.”

The meet opened with the women’s 5K race, the event where Binghamton secured the team championship a year ago. Leading the way for BU en route to her third career AE first-team-all-conference honor was junior Sydney Leitner, who clocked in at third at the first waypoint before slipping to finish 5th overall out of 83 finishers with a time of 17:37.49. Joining Leitner with an all-conference finish was freshman Anna Gansrow, who made her AE debut by clocking in at 17:59.14 for a 14th-place finish to make the cut for the second-team-all-conference. Also earning top 20 placements were sophomore Vicky Mordvinova and senior Jennifer Mui, with respective placements of 18th and 19th and times of 18:09.75 and 18:11.58. For their efforts, the Bearcat ladies placed third as a team with a point total of 85.

“I think you’ve got to be able to put two people in the top 10 to really have a great shot at winning,” Acuff said. “We just didn’t have someone on the women’s side who really had a realistic chance of being in the top 10 other than [Leitner]. That hurt us probably the most in being able to have a chance to win, but everyone ran well. So I’m not disappointed whatsoever, definitely.”

As the weather slowly warmed up and the clock neared high noon, it soon became time for the men’s 8K. For Binghamton, all eyes were on graduate student Josh Stone in his final chance to secure the AE individual title. The race was tight going into the first two waypoints, with Stone firmly entrenched in the top five pack of runners. Unfortunately, fortune was not on the side of Binghamton’s ace, as he was unable to match the breakout of the top two finishers and settled for a fifth-place finish and a time of 24:17.71. Stone’s efforts Saturday netted him AE first-team-all-conference honors — a distinction that ties him for first all-time in program all-conference placements with three.

“[Stone] had a little bit of a stomach issue that kind of kept him from being able to finish strong about three and a half miles in,” Acuff said.”It kind of started to bother him … I really feel for [Stone], because if he’s feeling great and his stomach’s not bothering him too much I think he wins today, but it just didn’t happen today. So he just didn’t feel 100 percent.”

Elsewhere in the men’s field, two other career days netted Bearcats honors from the AE. Putting it all together to place on the AE second-team-all-conference was junior Andrew Rosenblatt. Starting the race toward the middle of the top 20, Rosenblatt rose up the ranking through each mile to eventually finish 11th in the 84-finisher men’s field with a timesheet of 24:45.01. Just outside of the top 20 finishers was freshman Bobby Mayclim, who in just his third collegiate 8K ran a 24:56.35 to finish 21st. For his efforts Saturday, Mayclim became just the third Bearcat male to earn Men’s Outstanding Rookie of the Meet honors. As the final results were tallied, the Bearcat men earned the bronze medal as a team with 83 points.

“[Rosenblatt] had the race of his life, and I’m super proud of him,” Acuff said. “It’s a very exciting day because I love to see kids just have those breakout races because it just takes them to the next level.”

Binghamton will close out its 2024 cross-country campaign at the NCAA Northeast Regional Meet on Friday, Nov. 15 . First race is at a time to be determined at the Hopkinton Fairgrounds in Hopkinton, New Hampshire.