GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- The Indiana Wesleyan University women’s cross country team had a great race today and finished eighth out of 37 teams at the NAIA Great Lakes Challenge in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
IWU only trailed teams that are ranked inside the NAIA Top-25 ranking and also beat one. Indiana Wesleyan was the second best team out of nine Crossroads League teams present.
No. 10-ranked Taylor (Ind.) won the invitational with 80 points to edge No. 6 Olivet Nazarene (Ill.) with 86 points for the meet championship. No. 5 St. Francis (Ill.) was third at 114, No. 23 Indiana Tech took fourth with 162, and No. 11 Texas Wesleyan placed fifth with 171. No. 16 Shawnee St. (Ohio) claimed sixth place with 179, No. 21 Cornerstone (Mich.) was seventh at 190, and Indiana Wesleyan scored 197 for eighth position. Host school and No. 19-ranked Aquinas (Mich.) was ninth and behind Indiana Wesleyan with 224 points.
“We just had a great day today,” said Indiana Wesleyan head coach John Foss. “We looked very good out there and were just 35 points out of fourth place in a huge meet.”
The Wildcats’ top-seven runners all finished 70th place or better overall in the 363-runner field.
Kayla Ewert topped her season best time by 58 seconds to be the lead Wildcat today. She was 21st place with a time of 18:40. Two other Wildcats finished under 19 minutes as Isabel Wharton was 34th at 18:54 and Brooke Horswell was 38th in a time of 18:58.
Julie Kamp was 54th in the field at 19:10 and Christina Sandberg was the final scorer for Indiana Wesleyan with a 63rd place finish in 19:16. Laura Nordquist and Alyssa Foss rounded out the top-seven for Indiana Wesleyan as both ran a time of 19:21. Nordquist placed 68th while Foss was 70th.
“I was very pleased with the performances today,” continued Foss. “We had a very tight pack with our top-seven within 41 seconds of each other. All of the girls are running much, much better.”
Indiana Wesleyan next competes at 11 a.m. on November 9 in the Crossroads League Championship. The meet will be hosted by Grace (Ind.) in Winona Lake, Indiana.
