Student Life ArchivesThe Washington University women’s cross country team captured first place in the University Athletic Association Championships for the third year in a row while the men finished in second-place in the event one point behind the University of Chicago. The meet was hosted by the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY.
Running on a muddy course due to recent rain, members of the women’s team still made their presence felt in the event as they captured five of the top 10 spots in the race. Senior Maggie Grabow paced the Bears with a time of 23:25.40 to lead all runners in the event and finish in first place; Grabow also won the conference title last year. While Grabow was pleased with her own individual performance in the event, she was quick to credit the hard work of her teammates in contributing to her success at the meet.
“Winning the UAA’s is an incredible feeling,” Grabow said. “I couldn’t have done it without the help of my teammates. We have worked so hard this season.”
Behind Grabow were freshman Tyler Mulkin, sophomore Elizabeth Herndon, junior Stephanie Felz and sophomore Lindsay Harkema who finished in second, fourth, sixth and ninth place, respectively. The women’s team finished the meet with 22 total points to best second-place Emory University by 14 points. The Bears trailed Emory for much of the race, but were able to rally to finish on top. Grabow was proud of her teammates’ resolve to win the race.
“I just wanted to mention how proud I am of my teammates. We knew going in to the race that Emory was going to give us a run for our money,” Grabow said. “And they were definitely winning for a large part of the race, but everyone on the team stepped up, and we proved to them that we are a strong team.”
On the men’s side, juniors Greg Reindl and Brennan Bonner turned in the fastest times for the Bears. Reindl finished sixth while Bonner finished seventh with times of 26:25.00 and 26:36.40, respectively. Next for the Bears was senior Nathan Quest who finished 14th and junior Derek Leidigh who finished 16th. Despite finishing first, Reindl was less than thrilled with his individual performance, but was happy with the team’s performance overall.
“We ran a very good team race, our best so far this season,” Reindl said. “Brennan and I didn’t run very well up front, but everyone else ran very well.”
According to Grabow, the team’s strong performance overall in the meet is especially noteworthy considering that the runners had been training especially hard in recent days to record their best times at the upcoming NCAA Midwest Regional Championships. As a result, the team may have been somewhat fatigued.
“It is quite an accomplishment to perform as well as we did-we are training to peak for regionals in two weeks,” Grabow said. “So, we were running with some residual fatigue this weekend.”
The top four women’s teams and top five men’s teams from the Regionals, held on Nov. 13 in Rock Island, IL, will advance to the NCAA Division III Nationals Championships held the following weekend in Eau Clair, WI. Runners can also qualify individually for the National Championships. Last year, neither the women nor men qualified for the Nationals as a team but Grabow qualified individually. Still, Reindl offered an optimistic outlook for the Regionals.
“The women should be thinking about winning their region whereas we are just focusing on fourth-fifth place to qualify for nationals,” Reindl said. “We should have a good shot, as Chicago is the fifth ranked team in the region currently and we lost to them by one point this weekend.”
Grabow expressed a similarly positive assessment of the team’s chances.
“If we want to qualify as a team this year, we need to go into it with confidence in our training. However, we cannot just assume we will make it,” Grabow said. “We need to really focus on the competition, and try our best to move up as many places as possible. Coach Jeff [Stiles] knows how to prepare us well, so there is no doubt that we are ready.”