MECHANICSVILLE, Va. – A pair of top-10 individual finishes paced the George Mason men's and women's cross country teams at the Atlantic 10 Conference Cross Country Championships. 

Sophomore Ciara Donohue finished 8th and junior Logan Miller placed 10th to earn Atlantic 10 All-Conference honors on Saturday to lead the Patriot squads at Pole Green Park. The men finished fourth as a team and the women were 11th. 

The men improved one spot from a fifth-place finish last year, with five runners in the top 36 for a score of 102. Dayton captured the team championship with a score of 57. The Flyers placed an outstanding five runners in the top 19 of the field. Dayton was a surprise to many as it had finished ninth in 2015. Duquesne took second (77) and Saint Louis (85) finished third. 

Miller, from nearby Chantilly, led the Patriots for the first time this season. He finished 10th with a time of 25:04.4 on the five-mile course. 

"That was a big mental breakthrough for him," head coach Andrew Gerard said of Miller. "We've seen it in practice the last couple weeks. He's been really looking good, kind of gaining some confidence. It is a nice to see him put it out there on the cross country course."

Sophomore Grayson Morgan placed 16th in 25:15.9, just one spot outside all-conference honors. Senior Brent Coulter was not far behind in 18th in 25:24.1. Sophomore Trent Lancaster also impressed, taking 22nd in 25:29.1, marking one of the highest finishes in his career. Sophomore Paul Adam capped off Mason's top five by finishing 36th in 25:42.9.

The Patriots climbed throughout the race, putting a together a strong finish at the end. Just a mile into the race, they had a team score of 163. By the time they reached the 6K mark, they had dropped to 136 points. The last 1,500 meters, they moved up 34 more places to secure fourth place.

"In general, I'm pleased. I think we executed our race," Gerard said. "We didn't make some of the mistakes we made last year. When we were out in back last year we were very passive and then just kind of stayed there. This year, we moved forward. That was a conscious strategy on our part, to establish our pack and move up through the race. They did that very well. We dropped 60 places cumulatively between the mile and the end and we dropped 30 of those places basically the last mile of the race. We concentrated on closing well and on packing well. We just weren't far enough forward when it was all said and done… Even if we tightened up our pack, I don't know if we could have upended Dayton with the way they ran. They just did a fantastic job."

On the women's side, the Patriots took 11th (260), equaling their finish last year. Richmond won the team title for the second straight year with a score of 77. Dayton (88) and Duquesne (88) tied for second and Davidson (109) and Richmond (150) rounded out the top five.

Donohue led the Mason women by finishing eighth in a personal-best 17:36.8 on the 5K course. Her time was nearly a minute faster than last year's finish at the A-10 Championship, when she placed 46th in 18:32.2. In all five races this season, Donohue has led Mason and finished in the top 10.

And, just like in the previous four races this year, junior Amber Hawkins was the second Patriot to cross the finish line. Hawkins, a native of Winchester, Va., competing in her first A-10 Championships after transferring from Houston last year, took 16th in 17:56.4, just missing all-conference honors. Freshmen Khalilah Hamer placed 76th in 18:50.5, for a 50-second improvement from when she ran the exact same course a year ago as a senior at Woodbridge Senior High School. Sarah Richart (93rd, 19:13.5) and sophomore Caitlin Kelly (97th, 19:17.1) rounded out the top five for the Patriots. Nearly every one of the Patriots' runners set personal-bests for the 5K course.

"The reality of it is the A-10 is a deep conference on the women's side," Gerard said. "We've got to continue to try to rise to the occasion. But if we keep coming to championships and getting performances like these they'll come, the improved placing as a team will come. I can't really ask for more than improving by 50 seconds in a span of a year (like Hamer did). The ladies gave us everything they could and we just have to keep stepping up as far as the A-10 is concerned."

Both Mason teams will be back in action at the NCAA Southeast Region Championships on Nov. 14 in Charlottesville, Va., hosted by the University of Virginia. The women will run a little longer with a 6K course and the men will step up to a 10K course.