The GW women’s cross country team took home a fifth-place overall finish at the Navy Invitational Saturday morning. The men finished eighth overall in the second meet of the season for both teams.

Host Navy swept the meet for the second straight year. The Midshipmen women finished first among 12 teams while the men topped a 15-team field. American’s Samia Akbar won the women’s race in 18:10.08, placing her in the top 10 all-time finishers at the USNA Course. Navy’s Aaron Lanzel finished first for the men in 24:44.82.
The first Colonial to cross the line for the women was freshman Lindsay Blum, who finished 20th at 19:40.47. Junior Emily Jadwin, sophomore Erin Patton and sophomore Mary Beth McCullough finished 29th, 34th and 38th, respectively.

McCullough said the team was “very excited” about the results of the meet.

“We will be working on speed a lot more which will likely improve our times at the next meet,” she said.

Junior Darrell Andruski finished first for the GW men, coming in 16th with a time of 25:43.48. Junior David Azari and senior David Talbird rounded out the top three, finishing 36th and 37th, respectively.

“We are running as well as we should be without doing a lot of speed work,” said senior Rob Wolcheski, who did not finish the race because he did not feel well. “We have been doing a lot of endurance training which we thought would put us ahead of American University on at the meet.”

While American finished ahead of the Colonial men in second place, Wolcheski said the team will have further opportunities to improve.

“We are staying focused and looking forward to our next meet,” he said.

GW will have its chance to improve in its next meet at the Mount St. Mary’s Invitational in Emmitsburg, Md. Saturday at 10 a.m.