Saturday, October 29
Easton, Pa.
11 a.m.
Lehigh University
vs
Patriot League Championships
Strong Team Effort Lifts Lehigh to Second Place Finish at Patriot League Championships
10/29/2016 7:22:00 PM | Women's Cross Country
Complete Results (TFRRS) / (PDF)
PatriotLeague.com Recap
Lehigh Stats/Results Sheet
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EASTON, Pa. – The Lehigh women's cross country teams landed three runners in the top 10 to finish in second place at the Patriot League Cross Country Championships on Saturday. The runner-up finish is the fourth in program history and marks Lehigh's highest placement at the league championships since their runner-up performance in 2013, which was also hosted by Lafayette.
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Sophomore Maura Henderson, who just picked up the sport for the first time this fall, used a huge surge on the home stretch to vault herself to a fifth place overall finish with a time of 21:38.6, earning First Team All-Patriot League honors. Senior Marissa Karl was not far behind in eighth place in 21:57.9, earning second team all-league accolades, and classmate Amanda Ruschel joined her on the second team in 10th place overall in 22:01.9. The awards are the first all-league honors for all three runners and mark the highest finish of their careers at the Patriot League Championships.
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Next across the line was freshman Diana Hammerstone in 22nd place with her time of 22:32.0, followed by freshman Ashleigh Crawford in 34th place (22:46.9), sophomore Stephanie Hayes in 44th (23:05.0), and junior Laura Barnes rounded out seven scorers for Lehigh in 46th place (23:11.4).
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"More than anything, I'm happy for my team," Henderson said. "We got second place, which was a huge jump for us and we had so many girls step up right when we needed them to. It kind of went perfectly."
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"We wanted to come in here and leave with hardware, and we did," said head coach Debbie Utesch. "We had to make a tough call yesterday to hold Hannah Bonaguidi out which was a big hit to the team, but really put it on some other people to step up, and they did with Maura as our front runner with a tremendous last ditch effort to outkick the Holy Cross girl. And then our two seniors Marissa and Amanda just did a tremendous job to setup up and be All-Patriot League as seniors and just cap off what they've been doing all season leading this team."
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"Our team is so deep and everyone from one-to-twelve just did what they need to do," Henderson said.
"It was beautiful out. It was such a nice day and when you step out here, you couldn't be more ready to run."
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Also making the start for Lehigh in the championships were Grace Eckstein (23:24.3) and Ashley Strysko (23:29.5) who finished 57th and 58th, respectively. Jenn Mickens placed 72nd overall in 23:53.5, followed by Jennifer Burke (85th/24:35.1) and Leah Holmes (96th/25:09.8).
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Bucknell took home the team title for the second straight year and captured the top four individual spots, scoring 23 teams points. Lehigh tallied 75 points and third place Holy Cross had 78. Navy (122) took home fourth place and Army (124) rounded out the top five in the event, that had 109 runners.
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Utesch said afterwards that the team, which has had several workouts on the course, really looked to using the course's many hills as an opportunity to succeed.
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"We really looked at the hills here as mounds of opportunity, knowing when we were going to try and surge and running that back group hard," Utesch said. "And I think that's where we really ran into the position where we had a shot to grab second. We have our eyes on the future. We have a lot of young kids in the mix so we're excited to keep building."
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Next up for the Mountain Hawks will be the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regionals on Friday Nov. 11 on the campus of Penn State University.
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PatriotLeague.com Recap
Lehigh Stats/Results Sheet
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EASTON, Pa. – The Lehigh women's cross country teams landed three runners in the top 10 to finish in second place at the Patriot League Cross Country Championships on Saturday. The runner-up finish is the fourth in program history and marks Lehigh's highest placement at the league championships since their runner-up performance in 2013, which was also hosted by Lafayette.
Â
Sophomore Maura Henderson, who just picked up the sport for the first time this fall, used a huge surge on the home stretch to vault herself to a fifth place overall finish with a time of 21:38.6, earning First Team All-Patriot League honors. Senior Marissa Karl was not far behind in eighth place in 21:57.9, earning second team all-league accolades, and classmate Amanda Ruschel joined her on the second team in 10th place overall in 22:01.9. The awards are the first all-league honors for all three runners and mark the highest finish of their careers at the Patriot League Championships.
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Next across the line was freshman Diana Hammerstone in 22nd place with her time of 22:32.0, followed by freshman Ashleigh Crawford in 34th place (22:46.9), sophomore Stephanie Hayes in 44th (23:05.0), and junior Laura Barnes rounded out seven scorers for Lehigh in 46th place (23:11.4).
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"More than anything, I'm happy for my team," Henderson said. "We got second place, which was a huge jump for us and we had so many girls step up right when we needed them to. It kind of went perfectly."
Â
"We wanted to come in here and leave with hardware, and we did," said head coach Debbie Utesch. "We had to make a tough call yesterday to hold Hannah Bonaguidi out which was a big hit to the team, but really put it on some other people to step up, and they did with Maura as our front runner with a tremendous last ditch effort to outkick the Holy Cross girl. And then our two seniors Marissa and Amanda just did a tremendous job to setup up and be All-Patriot League as seniors and just cap off what they've been doing all season leading this team."
Â
"Our team is so deep and everyone from one-to-twelve just did what they need to do," Henderson said.
"It was beautiful out. It was such a nice day and when you step out here, you couldn't be more ready to run."
Â
Also making the start for Lehigh in the championships were Grace Eckstein (23:24.3) and Ashley Strysko (23:29.5) who finished 57th and 58th, respectively. Jenn Mickens placed 72nd overall in 23:53.5, followed by Jennifer Burke (85th/24:35.1) and Leah Holmes (96th/25:09.8).
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Bucknell took home the team title for the second straight year and captured the top four individual spots, scoring 23 teams points. Lehigh tallied 75 points and third place Holy Cross had 78. Navy (122) took home fourth place and Army (124) rounded out the top five in the event, that had 109 runners.
Â
Utesch said afterwards that the team, which has had several workouts on the course, really looked to using the course's many hills as an opportunity to succeed.
Â
"We really looked at the hills here as mounds of opportunity, knowing when we were going to try and surge and running that back group hard," Utesch said. "And I think that's where we really ran into the position where we had a shot to grab second. We have our eyes on the future. We have a lot of young kids in the mix so we're excited to keep building."
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Next up for the Mountain Hawks will be the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regionals on Friday Nov. 11 on the campus of Penn State University.
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Players Mentioned
/ Women's Cross Country
/ Women's Cross Country
/ Women's Cross Country
/ Women's Cross Country
/ Women's Cross Country
/ Women's Cross Country
/ Women's Cross Country
/ Women's Cross Country
/ Women's Cross Country
/ Women's Cross Country
/ Women's Cross Country
/ Women's Cross Country
/ Women's Cross Country
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