Freshman Julia Dempsey (Cumberland, R.I.) of the Merrimack College women's cross country team has been named this week's Fuddruckers Female Athlete of the Week.

Dempsey was also named the Northeast-10 Conference Women's Rookie of the Week for the first time in her career after propelling Merrimack to a second-place finish at the Bowdoin Invitational on Saturday afternoon. She trimmed over 30 seconds off her time from the first race of the season, as she once again led the Warriors with a third-place finish. The rookie posted a time of 19:18.6 seconds, averaging just over a six-minute mile.

The Cumberland, Rhode Island, native started her collegiate career by running just under 20 minutes at the Shacklette Invitational two weeks ago, placing 11^th in the individual leader board that day.

Dempsey and the rest of the Warriors return to action this Saturday when they run in the Codfish Bowl at Franklin Park in Boston.