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Cross country: Harper doubles up on national repeats

Harper's men's and women's cross country teams proved to be the class of the NJCAA field on Saturday as both earned national championship repeats in the Division III class.

In an especially dominant showing, the women's team got a third-place individual finish from Misbah Baig (Hoffman Estates) and a fifth-place effort from Bree Bogucki to total a mere 24 points at Stanley Park in Westfield, Mass. That's just 2 points off the record for lowest score in the national final.

Oxford Emory (Ga.) was second with 82 points.

Baig, a freshman, finished the 5K course in 19:02.4, and Bogucki, a sophomore, came in at 19:35.1. Right behind them were Rachel Temple (19:46.1), Natalie Cook (19:49.1), Melissa Rodriguez (19:57.0) and Taylor Kreiss (20:08.5).

In the men's race, it was a much closer contest.

Harper won with 84 points, just ahead of Suffolk County (N.Y.) and Sandhills (N.C.), who had 100 and 129, respectively.

The top finisher for Harper was freshman Sean Sanaghan (26:52).

Both Harper teams are coached by Jim Macnider.

The men's team won for a seventh straight year under his guidance, while it was a second straight triumph for the women's program.

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