St. Lawrence University's women's cross country team place four runners in the top 30 and earned the second podium finish in program history at the NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships at the Kings Island Golf Center in Mason, OH on Saturday, finishing third.

The Saints, making their seventh straight championship appearance and ninth overall, had their fifth top ten finish and the second best in program history, trailing only the second place 2009 team. SLU finished with 138 points, trailing only Johns Hopkins which had 87 and MIT which finished with 112. The top three teams finished exactly in the same positions as the final national poll going into the meet.

Senior Cassia Hameline, running her first season of cross country, earned All America honors and was the top Saint finisher with an eighth place finish in 21:51.5. She is the fourth Saint runner in program history to have a top ten finish, joining two-time champion Wendy Pavlus, Johanna Ludington and Amy Cymerman.

"We ran about as well as we possibly could," said Saint coach Mike Howard. "We have an extremely young team...even Cassie as a senior is really a rookie...and while I was real confident going in because of the way we have run up to this point, nerves are always an issue in this kind of race. We talked about our race plan for the last couple of days and we went out real aggressive right from the start. They carried out the plan marvelously."

First Year Megan Kellogg was the second Saint finisher and will be the first rookie All America in Saint program history after an 11th place finish in 21:57.1. Kellogg was the top first year finisher in the race and recorded the best first year finish in Saint program history. The previous best was a 39th place finish by Ella Martin in 2012. Senior Anne Martino and sophomore Lisa Grohn were the other top 30 finishers for the Saints with Martino in 21st in 22:19.1 and Grohn in 26th in 22:20.9. Martino and Grohn both made dramatic improvements over their finishes of a year ago with Martino moving up 71 places and Grohn 36. They join Hameline and Kellogg as All America, giving the Saints four in one year for the first time in program history.

"Four All Americas in one race is pretty impressive," Howard said. "Megan Kellogg ran lights out. She has continued to get better and better in each of the last couple of weeks. She got out a little slower than we wanted…she was caught up in some traffic and stuck back in the 70s and 80s, but she put in a lot of work to move up. You don't usually see that kind of composure in any runner, to say nothing of a rookie."

First Year Ashley Leta completed the Saint scoring with a 115th place finish in 23:21.5 while Carrie Pomainville was sixth in 178th, running 23:47.7 and Anna Rabideau finished 238th in 24:23.7.

"Johns Hopkins and MIT have veteran teams, but I think we put a little fear in them. We were even with them, or even a little ahead through the top four runners. Their experience and depth made a difference…not to take anything away from Ashley Leta, our fifth finisher, who ran a gutsy race over the last 1000 meters to move by a number of runners and lock up third for us." Howard added.