FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Courtesy of Suffolk Athletics Communications
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Emily Manfra put an exclamation point on her Suffolk cross country career as the senior cruised to a 54th-place finish at the 2019 NCAA Division III National Championships Saturday morning at the E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park, while sophomore Matyas Csiki-Fejer made the most of being the first-ever Ram to run at nationals with a 148th-place performance.
Manfra, a Stoneham, Massachusetts, product, who made history a year ago as the first-ever Suffolk student-athlete, either male or female, to punch her ticket to nationals, became the first Ram to compete in at the event in back-to-back years. Additionally, on the conference stage, she is the first female runner to compete on the 6K course at the national stage in the league's history.
The 2019 GNAC Runner of the Year saved her best for last as she clocked in a 22:23.1 6K, good for 54th out of the 277 competitors, upstaging her 83rd-place, 22:25.6, performance from a year ago.
Manfra, who will take her talents into the indoor winter track & field season, closed out a historic cross country career as the most decorated runner in Suffolk's program history. In four seasons wearing the blue-and-gold on the course, she has garnered two all-region nods, GNAC Runner and Rookie of the Year status, respectively, and three all-conference first-team nods. Her athletic success is just as impressive as her academic accolades as she became the first-ever Rams' runner to garner Google Cloud Academic All-America recognition last season in addition to a Google Cloud Academic All-District nod.
Meanwhile, Csiki-Fejer burst out of the gates finishing the first 1K in 3:03.4. The Manchester, Missouri, local who was the first-ever Suffolk male student-athlete to run on the national stage, completed the 8K course in 25:47.5 to finish in the middle of the 280-runner field.
The performance is the best by a GNAC student-athlete at NCAAs, upstaging Johnson & Wales Greg Redfield's 173rd-place performance behind a time of 27:16.6 in 2009.
Csiki-Fejer closed out a standout sophomore that saw him collect all-region accolades, become the first-ever Ram to take home GNAC Runner of the Year accolades with a course record-setting finish in Standish, Maine on November 2.