The Panther cross country teams both turned in strong performances at the Purple Valley Classic hosted by Williams on an unseasonably warm Saturday at the Mt. Greylock Regional High School course. The women, who entered the weekend ranked eighth nationally, finished second in the event with 65 points behind only fourth-ranked MIT's 36, while the Middlebury men, ranked 29th, were sixth with 152 points.

The women placed all five of their runners in the top 20. Alison Maxwell led the Panther women over the 6K course with a time of 22:44.9 for a fourth-place finish out of 267 participants, while Adrian Walsh was 11th in 23:00.5. Addis Fouche-Channer was next to cross the line in 14th (23:12.5), while Summer Spillane was just under three seconds back in 16th (23:15.2). Olivia Artaiz rounded out the scorers in 20th (23:26).

The men placed five in the top 46 out of 236 individuals on the 8K course, including Kevin Wood's seventh-place finish in 26:31.3. Wilder Schaaf was the next to cross in 14th (26:45.9), while Sebastian Matt was 40th with a time of 27:25.6. Brian Rich and Sam Cartwright completed the scorers on the men's side in 51st (27:37.7) and 52nd (27:39.2), respectively.