AACC will bring back Men’s Cross Country starting in fall 2019 after a decades-long hiatus.

Keith Bigelow, the coordinator of athletics, will coach the team.

“It’s been something that we have kicked around as a department for a long time,” Bigelow said.

Bigelow said he hopes to recruit at least five runners so the Riverhawks will qualify to participate in the Maryland Junior College Athletic Conference meet and be eligible for the National Junior College Athletic Association national meet.

He also said he will contact the cross country coaches at county high schools to see if any graduating seniors would like to join the team.

Chris Brunk, a first-year engineering student, said he might consider trying out for the new team.

“I have had friends who have done cross country in the past and I have thought about it,” Brunk said.

Brunk played lacrosse at St. John’s College High School and club lacrosse at the University of Maryland during his freshman year before transferring to AACC in the fall. He planned to play lacrosse at AACC this semester, but he tore his ACL during a fall lacrosse scrimmage.

“With lacrosse being a spring sport, [cross country is] something I could do in the off-season [to] stay in shape,” Brunk said.

Jonathon Amao, a University of Maryland, Baltimore County student who took a winter psychology course at AACC in January, said he would join the team if he were a full-time AACC student.

He said if the team had been around two years ago when he was shopping for colleges, he would have heavily considered becoming a Riverhawk.

“I would’ve taken the opportunity to keep on running,” Amao said. “I love running.”