Women's Individual Results Women's Team Results
SPOKANE, Wash. - The 19th-ranked Alaska Nanook women's cross country team finished their historic season on a high note, moving up two places to take 17th out of 24 teams at the NCAA Division II Cross Country National Championships on Saturday morning at the Plantes Ferry Sports Complex.
"Today was an awesome day for us," said assistant coach Matt Dunlap. "All of our girls ran very well, very smart races. Sometimes racing doesn't always go the way you plan for it to and some of our girls didn't run to the best of their abilities but becuase we have such a deep group of girls, other's were able to step up and because of that we were able to finish 17th as a team."
Leading the pack was senior
Crystal Pitney, who raced her way to a 62nd place finish out of 186 runners on the six kilometer course in 22 minutes 58.9 seconds. Sophmore
Raphaela Sieber followed in 91st with a course time of 23:32.7 and senior
Theresia Schnurr was close behind in 97th (23:36.8). Alaska's third senior,
Jana Benedix, was next to cross for the Nanooks, taking 126th in 24:05.
"Crystal led the way in 62nd place and that was awesome to see her end her senior season on a high note," Dunlap said. "Same with Tete and Jana, who had the race of her life. She started out slightly slower and more conservative like she always does; she was around 180th at one point and and moved up to 126th."
"Our three seniors went out with a bang and we're very happy with how their season and careers ended."
Junior
Heather Edic (138th, 24:18.8),
Alyson McPhetres (150th, 24:35.6) and
Kryston McPhetres (170th, 25:32.0) rounded out Alaska's participants.
"The girls were very excited to race, they've worked very hard all season to be here and they made it here. It was a true team effort today and I'm proud of how well they were able to race as a team today and how hard they've worked all year."
The Nanooks finished with 436 points on their first ever team apperance at Nationals. Augustana College of South Dakota edged Western State of Colorado for the women's team title, 75-79.
Alaska Anchorage finished sixth overall to lead the Great Northwest Athletic Conference teams, while Western Washington was second among league competitors at the event in 12th.
