November 15, 2014
Rabenold national qualifier; Wolverines ninth at Regionals
NEWVILLE, Pa. -- Junior Emily Rabenold (Allison Park, Pa./Hampton) earned her second-straight bid to the NCAA Division III National Championships and all seven runners finished in the top half of the field as the Grove City College women's cross country team posted a ninth-place team finish out of 52 teams at the 2014 NCAA Division III Mideast Regional Championships, hosted by Dickinson College, at Big Spring High School on Saturday afternoon.
Grove City had four runners finish in the top-80 of the 370-runner field en route to amassing 310 team points for their seventh top-10 team finish in the last eight years.
Rabenold completed the six-kilometer course in 22 minutes, 19.0 seconds to finish ninth individually and fourth among runners who did not qualify with their team. With her ninth-place finish, Rabenold also earned USTFCCCA All-Mideast Region honors for the second year in a row.
Junior Stevie Huston (Greensburg, Pa./Latrobe) was the Wolverines' second finisher, taking 47th in 23:22.4 while freshman Mackenzie Klinvex (Wexford, Pa./Shady Side Academy) was 75th with a time of 23:57.2.
Freshman Martha Mihm (Stone Ridge, N.Y./Rondout Valley) finished just behind Klinvex in 80th (24:03.1) while junior Emily Townsend (Tucker, Ga./Killian Hill Christian) rounded out the Grove City scoring by taking 101st in 24:21.1.
Senior Kara Cremean (Vermillion, Ohio/Vermillion) placed 108th with a time of 24:27.3 while sophomore Lydia Keiper (East Greenville, Pa./Upper Perkiomen) took 159th in 25:11.5.
Johns Hopkins placed four runners in the top-seven to roll to the team title with 28 points while host Dickinson earned the region's second automatic team bid with 99 points. Johns Hopkins' Sophia Meehan won the individual title with a course-record time of 21:18.0.
Today's meet marks the final team competition of the season for Grove City, who will lose Cremean and fellow senior Caroline Kimpel (Columbiana, Ohio/Columbiana) to graduation.
Rabenold will compete at the national championships in Mason, Ohio, next Saturday. This will be Rabenold's third appearance in an NCAA Championship event. She finished 179th out of 280 runners at the 2013 DIII Cross Country Championships at Hanover College last fall before posting an 15th-place in the steeplechase at the 2014 DIII Track and Field Championships at Ohio Wesleyan in the spring.