The Eastern Washington University cross country team split squads this weekend and raced today (Oct. 1st) at the Whitman College Open as their third meet of the season. Junior Kaylin Sheley crossed the finish line with a first-place finish, claiming victory for EWU's women's team. For the men's team, junior Alec Kness ended his 8k race in the top ten.
"The Whitman Open today, we got to go up against some quality regional division II, division III schools, our second squad on the women's side stepped up and won the meet. It gave them a really cool opportunity to feel the pressure of being a scorer and they handled it really well." Said head cross country coach Sam Read.
All of the Eagle women placed in the top ten for their first 6k meet of the season, respectively. The women's team was led by Sheley (1st, 22:42.0) with sophomore Amanda Nygard (3rd, 23:30.8), junior Anna Harrison (4th, 23:51.6), freshman Rylee Brandon (6th, 24:04.7), sophomore Nicole DeHerrera (8th, 24:44.1), redshirt sophomore Lizzie Stites (9th, 24:46.4) and freshman Rhiannon Davies (10th, 24:48.2) following right behind. On the men's side Kness finished in eighth with a time of 27:13.2.
"I thought today's result showed our depth and our future with the strength we ran today and how deep we are. I'd like to highlight Kaylins performance in getting the win. It was a 3 loop course and she negatively split every loop which is definitely hard to do solo. And was just a few seconds off of her personal best time so I think it was a really outstanding effort by her. On the guys, Alec was our sole representative, raced hard for us, he was top ten the whole race and finished there so a really quality run by him as well."
The EWU women's cross country team ended the meet in first place with a total of 22 points. Competing teams were Whitman College, Whitworth University, University of Puget Sound and Central Washington University.
The cross country team will come together again for the L&C Invite on Oct. 15th in Estacada, Ore. They will then participate in the last regular meet of the season at the Sasquatch Invite (Oct. 26th) in Spokane, Wash. Afterwards EWU will be hosting, for the first time since 2010, the Big Sky Championship at the Fairways Golf course in Cheney, Wash. The men will be racing the 8k at 10 A.M. and the women will run the 5k at 11 A.M. The meet will be a free admission event.
Women's Performances
1st Kaylin Sheley (22:42.0)
3rd Amanda Nygard (23:30.8)
4th Anna Harrison (23:51.6)
6th Rylee Brandon (24:04.7)
8th Nicole DeHerrera ( 24:44.1)
9th Lizzie Stites (24:46.4)
10th Rhiannon Davies (24:48.2)
Men's Performance
8th Alec Kness (27:13.2)
