CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA – Graduate student Alex Ross placed 20^th in a field of 173 runners to lead the fourth-ranked Johns Hopkins women's cross country team to a 15^th-place finish at the University of Virginia's Panorama Invitational Saturday morning.  The 5k event included 18 teams – 17 Division I teams and the Division III Blue Jays, who placed all five of their scoring runners in the top 93 (among scoring runners) and totaled 363 points to earn their 15^th-place finish.
 
Host Virginia easily claimed the team title with 32 points, while Mississippi (110 points), Kentucky (116), Virginia Tech (146) and Wake Forest (155) rounded out the top five.  Kentucky is ranked 27^th in the nation in Division I, while Mississippi and Texas, which placed ninth, were receiving votes in the most recent Division I national poll.

Ross once again led the Blue Jays with her 20^th place finish.  Ross sat in 46^th place at the 2k mark, but jumped 25 spots to 21^st at the 4.1k split and then edged forward a spot to 20^th and crossed the line in 17:18.3.
 
Just 18 spots among scoring runners separated the Blue Jays' second through fifth runners with the four coming home within 30 seconds of each other.  Senior Sydney Friedel was the first of the four to finish as she came home in 18:18.5.  The duo of senior Sara Stephenson (18:33.3) and junior Triya Roy (18:33.5) crossed the line nearly simultaneously before senior Katherine Priu rounded out the Blue Jays' scoring runners with a 93^rd-place finish in a time of 18:48.2.  Like Ross, each of the four picked up the pace after the 2k split as all four jumped at least 21 spots over the final 3k.
 

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GLASSBORO, NJ – Competing at Rowan's Border Battle, select members of the Blue Jay women's cross country team earned a 16^th-place finish in a field of 35 teams with 395 points.
 
Junior Lily Sheth paced the Blue Jays as she placed 47^th overall in a time of 23:40.  She was the first of three Johns Hopkins runners who placed in the top 80 as she was followed by Adriana Catalano (67^th/23:57/8) and Kaiti Ness (24:08.4) across the line.
 
SUNY Geneseo won the team title with 37 points to narrowly edge Carleton, which finished just a point behind.  RPI (109), Elizabethtown (170) and Widener (187) rounded out the top five in the team scoring.