Led by first-year standout Liz Schulze (San Diego, Calif.), the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College women’s cross country team defeated rival Bowdoin 90-127 in a dual meet hosted by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Saturday at Pineland Farms.

Schulze ran out to the head of the pack and built a healthy lead, ultimately winning the 5-kilometer race in a time of 19:38, 14 seconds ahead of runner-up Lindsay Hodge of Bowdoin.

It was her second win in as many races for Schulze, who also cruised to first place in the women’s First-Year/Sophomore race the weekend before at the Colby Class Wave Relays.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, ranked No. 9 in New England, next competes at the Codfish Bowl Saturday at Boston’s Franklin Park at 11 a.m.

The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College men’s cross country team placed the top two finishers and three of the top four in a dual meet with rival Bowdoin College on Saturday hosted by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ at Pineland Farms.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ senior captain Doug Brecher (Waban, Mass.), took first place, finishing the 5-mile course in a time of 26:21, just a second ahead of fellow captain Devin Dilts (Roscoe, Ill.), a junior. Colman Hatton led the Polar Bears, finishing third in 26:37. ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ Sean Colligan (Goffstown, N.H.) and Bowdoin’s Stan Berkow rounded out the top five finishers.

It was the second straight race win for Brecher, a former All-New England and All-State selection.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ junior Vantiel Elizabeth Duncan (Topsham, Maine) became a three-time All-American by finishing fifth in the women’s hammer throw at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships last week at Marietta College.

Duncan also came up just short of claiming a second All-America award in these championships on Saturday in the shot put, making the finals but finishing in ninth place with a top heave of 13.10 meters (42-11.75). Duncan was seeded 15th in the event going in.

Duncan’s top hammer throw of 52.29 meters (171-6), qualified her for the nine-athlete final. It is her first outdoor All-America award, after twice achieving the feat at the NCAA Indoor Championships in the weight throw.

Duncan and senior teammate Izzy Alexander (Harvard, Mass.) represented the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ women’s team at the meet. Alexander placed sixth in the 400-meter hurdles to finish her career with five All-America honors, the second highest total in team history.

Few athletes in ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College history have ever reached the degree of achievement Ben Stein did May 22-24, 2009, when he won eight matches and lost only one, the NCAA Division III Men’s Tennis Singles Championship, and headed home as a national champion.

Stein was unseeded in the 32-player singles field at the tournament, as were he and teammate Amrit Rupasinghe in the 16-team doubles field. Yet he and Rupasinghe won four straight matches to claim ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ first NCAA doubles title, even as Stein won four straight singles matches to advance to Sunday’s final, falling in three sets to Emory’s Michael Goodwin 7-5, 5-7, 6-1.

After Stein was finally finished with his run for the singles championship, he and Rupasinghe competed in the semifinals of the doubles championship, outlasting the same pair they defeated last year at the NCAA Championships at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in the quarterfinals, Charlie Cutler and Chris Hoeland of Washington University in St. Louis, by a 7-6 (2), 3-6, 6-4 score.

Improbably, with the NCAA title on the line, the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ pair matched up against Oscar Pena and Jamie Neely of rival Bowdoin. The match was excellently played by all four players. Rupasinghe had dominant moments in different spots during the match, particularly the first set. But it was Stein who played “like a beast,” in the words of online broadcaster Ken Thomas, in the decisive third set, as the Bobcats won 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 in a moment for the ages in ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ athletics lore.

On the final day of the 2009 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ baseball season, sophomore outfielder Chris Burke (Andover, Mass.) wrapped up an outstanding first season as a regular starter. In the season-ending doubleheader at St. Joseph’s of Maine, Burke went a combined 4-for-7 with three runs and three RBIs.

Burke, who was limited to only six at-bats as a rookie last year, excelled right off the bat in his sophomore campaign, starting the season with an 18-game hitting streak. He started 33 games in right field for the Bobcats and finished the year batting .406 with 52 hits, breaking the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ single-season record of 50 set a year ago by Brian Mahoney ’08. Burke also set a new ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ single-season record for singles, with 41. Burke’s 33 RBIs also supersede Mahoney’s total of 30 last year, which had been the highest number by a Bobcat in over a decade. Burke had 12 multi-hit games on the season, compared to only three hitless games.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ senior Izzy Alexander (Harvard, Mass.) broke the New England Division III Women’s Track and Field Championship meet record in the 400-meter hurdles on Saturday at Springfield College, winning the event in 1:01.78 and slicing 0.18 seconds off of the previous set by Springfield’s Beth Bowler in 1998. Alexander’s time also lowered her own ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ outdoor record in the event by 0.13 seconds. She was 1.82 seconds ahead of runner-up Alice Wisener of Middlebury.

Alexander’s effort highlighted the Bobcats day at the meet, in which the team finished ninth for the third year in a row. The Bobcats scored 40.5 points, well ahead of 10th-place Brandeis (25) among 26 point-scoring teams.

Also at the meet, Alexander teamed up with senior Jen Marino (Methuen, Mass.), sophomore Dana Lindauer (Needham, Mass.) and senior Tara Higgins (Jeffersonville, Vt.) and Alexander placed seventh in a time of 4:07.29.

Next up for the Bobcats is the all-divisions Open New England Championships at UMass-Amherst this weekend.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ first-year Candido Bousquet (Colombo, Sri Lanka) displayed terrific versatility Saturday at the NESCAC Men’s Outdoor Track and Field Championships at Connecticut College, and was one of the Bobcats keys to nipping Tufts for second place at the meet by half a point.

Bousquet competed in four events on the day and scored a combined 13 points points for the Bobcats in three of them. He placed third in the long jump (22-01.75), third in the discus throw (139-06) and eighth in the shot put (42-00.50). Bousquet was also 13th in the hammer throw (130-04). Every point counted for the Bobcats, who scored 116.5 points, just ahead of Tufts (116) for their highest team finish since 2004.

Bousquet earned NESCAC All-Conference honors in both the long jump and the discus throw for placing among the top three, and was also a strong candidate to claim Most Outstanding Rookie Performer honors.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ first-year catcher Leah Maciejewski (Tewksbury, Mass.) capped a terrific game in dramatic fashion Saturday against Trinity, doubling down the left-field line to score Karen Ullmann with the game-winning run in the 11th inning for a 9-8 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ victory. The win clinched second place in the NESCAC East Division and the Bobcats’ first berth in the four-team field of the NESCAC Softball Championship, in the tournament’s ninth year of existence.

The double made Maciejewski 3-for-6 on the day with two doubles, two runs scored and three RBIs. She also singled and scored in the seventh inning, when ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ came back from an 8-5 deficit to tie the game at 8-8 and send the game into extra innings.

Maciejewski finished the weekend leading the Bobcats in batting average at .356 and in runs scored at 12.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ junior Rich McNeil (Lawrence, Mass.) won three throwing events last weekend at the Colby Invitational, helping the Bobcats claim first place out of four teams, including their first regular-season win over MIT in 14 years.

McNeil, a five-time All-NESCAC performer, one-time All-American and the 2007 NESCAC Most Outstanding Rookie Performer placed first in the hammer throw, the discus throw and the shot put (45-04.25). His tosses in the discus (145-02) and the hammer (174-10) were both season bests.

McNeil was named the NESCAC Field Performer of the Week, the New England Small College Athletic Conference announced on Monday.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ first-year 3B Monica Berube (Plainstow, N.H.) carried the Bobcat softball team’s offense during a key 3-1 week, going .400 at the plate (4-for-10) with a double, two home runs, three walks, four runs batted in and two runs scored.

Berube was the only team member to hit above .200 for the week, and she did it at the most opportune time, as ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ defeated Colby last week to sweep the Mules for the first time since 2001, then went 2-1 in a weekend series against Bowdoin to claim the CBB title with an overall 5-1 record against the two in-state conference rivals.

Berube raised her batting average on the season to .275, and she ranks third on the team in slugging at .475. She also sports a spotless fielding percentage of 1.000 thus far.