DURHAM, N.H. – At Binghamton University, each Friday is known as Green Day Friday, where staff and students are encouraged to wear green to promote school spirit on campus. On Friday afternoon at New Hampshire, senior Emily Mackay and graduate student Dan Schaffer wore their school colors as they made history at the America East Cross Country Championships.

The Bearcat duo swept the women's and men's America East individual cross country titles. It marked the first time since 2001 that the same school won both individual conference titles at the meet.

Mackay won her second straight title. In the process, she becomes just the sixth runner to win multiple cross country titles since the meet was first held in 1988.

"It feels so good to be out here racing today," she said. "The key was to stay back for as long as possible and stay relaxed. It was tough because there were a lot of good runners out there but I stayed relaxed and did my thing over the last 800 meters."

Schaffer, meanwhile, won his long-awaited first championship. He placed second in 2018 and fourth last season but missed the 2019 meet due to injuries.

"It feels amazing," he said. "I have won a couple of (America East) 1,500 titles in track so I knew that with this meet finishing on the track, I could power it home. Coach Acuff and Coach Murray have had this as a goal of mine for a few years. I have dealt with some injuries so it feels amazing to finally achieve this goal that I have had for a very long time."

In the final team standings, Binghamton placed third in the men's race out of 10 schools. It marked the Bearcats' highest finish since 2018 when they were also third. In addition, it marked the eighth time since 2008 that they have placed among the top three teams.

The women's team, meanwhile, placed fourth. It tied their highest finish at the America East Championships, having also placed fourth in 2004 and 2005.

"Today was a great day for our program," head coach Annette Acuff said. "It's always a great feeling to win any title whether it be in track or cross country. I'm very happy for Dan and Emily and I thought both our teams ran fantastic today. We showed good improvement in our times from when we ran in the pre-conference meet (back in September)."

Mackay's first-place time for the women's 5,000-meter run was 16:24, which was the fastest time recorded by any women's runner in the history of the America East Meet. On Friday, her time was eight seconds faster than runner up  Emily Stessa of UMass Lowell.

Senior Aziza Chigatayeva was fifth in a time of 16:57. She has now placed among the top five runners in each of the past four America East Championships. Chigatayeva is now a four-time, first-team all-conference selection – an honor which is awarded to the top seven finishers each year.

Rounding out the Bearcats' scoring in the women's race was graduate student Elisabeth Van Tassell, who was 29th (18:14.09), sophomore Sheridan Talada in 30th place (18:14.20) and junior Carolyn Burnell in 42nd place (18:30). In addition, graduate student Kaylee Stone placed 44th overall (18:41.66).

There were 91 finishers in the women's race.

UMass Lowell won the team title with 32 points, followed by New Hampshire (61), Stony Brook (63) and Binghamton (98).

As for Schaffer, he clocked an 8,000-meter time of 23:55, which was seven seconds faster than second-place Derek Holmes of UMass Lowell. Schaffer is now just the second three-time America East all-conference honoree in program history. Chris Gaube earned the distinction from 2008-10.

Junior Ryan Guerci was 16th (24:33), followed by sophomore Josh Stone in 19th place (24:47), senior Matt Jacob in 23rd place (25:12) and senior Dave Leff in 24th place (25:15). In addition, junior Marty Dolan was 27th overall (25:20).

There were 92 runners in the men's race.

UMass Lowell also won the men's team title with 26 points, followed by Stony Brook (55) and Binghamton (79).

Binghamton heads to the NCAA Northeast Region meet on Friday, Nov. 12 at Franklin Park in Boston.