November 14, 2009
Wolverines earn 4th at Mideast meet
BETHLEHEM, Pa. -- Three Grove City College women's cross country runners earned All-Mideast Region recognition Saturday after helping the Wolverines earn fourth place at the 53-team NCAA Mideast Regional Championships, hosted by Muhlenberg College. Grove City accumulated 175 team points in taking fourth place. Johns Hopkins won the team title with 109, followed by Dickinson (113) and Haverford (146).
Freshman Ella Smith (Becker, Minn./Becker), freshman Sara Fisher (Jefferson, Md./Brunswick) and junior Emily Pierce (Lisbon, N.Y./Lisbon Central) all earned All-Mideast honors by finishing in the top 35. Smith earned 16th place by finishing the six-kilometer course in 22 minutes, 38.7 seconds.
Fisher finished 24th in a time of 22:46.9 while Pierce came home 33rd in 23:08.4.
Freshman Mary Kate Breese (Mercer, Pa./Mercer) took 49th individually (23:38.4) while junior Brigitte Fryan (Canton, Ohio/Massillon Jackson) placed 53rd with a time of 23:45.9.
Also for Grove City, junior Kate McRoberts (Green, Ohio/Cuyahoga Valley Christian) took 64th (23:55.2) and senior Rachel Nelson (Dover, Mass./Lexington Christian) earned 80th place (24:07.2).
Lebanon Valley's Jenn Cronin won the individual race with a victorious time of 21:39.2.
Grove City's fourth-place finish is its best at the regional meet since the 2005 squad took fourth in a 42-team field. The Wolverines earned fifth place last year and sixth place in 2007.
As a team, Grove City is now under consideration for an invitation to next Saturday's NCAA Championships, hosted by Baldwin-Wallace College. The national field will be announced Sunday afternoon.