Cross Country: Impressive Finish at Penn State
October 16, 2010 02:54 PM | General
Penn State National Results 2010 Cross Country Season StatsMORGANTOWN, W. Va. – Facing some of the top running programs in the nation, the West Virginia University cross country team came away with a sixth-place finish at the Penn State National Saturday morning in State College, Pa.
No. 1 Villanova earned the victory with 26 team points followed by No.8 Syracuse, which finished second with 57. Host Penn State came in third with 137 points with Miami of Ohio arriving in fourth with 155. Grand Valley State finished fifth with 166 points. WVU was followed by Cornell, Yale and Penn as a total of 31 teams participated in the race.
Junior Sarah-Anne Brault, a Winnipeg, Manitoba native, arrived in 11th place overall in the 6K race out of 304 runners with an impressive time of 21:05. Coming in second for the team was sophomore Kaitlyn Gillespie, who finished in 17th place in 21:13.
“I was very pleased with many aspects of today’s race,” says WVU coach Sean Cleary. “This was a very tough test for this group. Our front runners put themselves in the front of a national class pack and handled themselves with great poise. Our gap from 1-5 was 1:18 over a 6K distance; just two weeks ago at Notre Dame, we had a 1:21 gap for a 5K.”
Morgantown native Ahna Lewis had the team’s third-best finish in her 2010 debut, crossing the line in 36th place overall in 21:44. Senior Maria Dalzot provided the team’s fourth point tally with a 68th-place finish in 22:18.
Hallie Portner finished in 73rd just five seconds behind Dalzot, while Sarah Martinelli arrived five seconds after Portner for an 83rd-place mark. Also competing for WVU were runners Aubrey Moskal, Jordan Hamric, Chelsea Jarvis and Jamie Cokeley.
“This is a nice progression for the team,” Cleary says. “I feel confident that we will continue to improve over the next month. I firmly believe that as a group we have one more step to take before fulfilling our outright potential.”
With the solid finish, the Mountaineers improve to 49-8 on the season.
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