Women’s Cross Country Places 11th of 30 At NCAA Central Region Meet

Complete Results

PELLA, Iowa – The Gustavus Adolphus College women’s cross country team placed 11th of 30 teams at the NCAA Central Region Meet that was held on Saturday afternoon at Central College. The Gusties scored a 267, just 11 points behind ninth place Wartburg College. The University of St. Thomas won the meet with a score of 118.

“The women ran pretty well today,” said Coach Dale Bahr. “We have a young team overall and they’re learning what this process is all about. Our seniors have certainly led by example with their work ethic and shown the younger ladies the importance of working hard and smart and how to race at the college level. Our youth is continuing to gain experience and that’s going to be what we need moving forward.”

As she has done almost all season long, Marit Sonnesyn (Sr., Plymouth, Minn.) led Gustavus, this time with a 15th place finish out of 205 runners after finishing the 6k race in 22:57.4.

“I was very impressed with how Marit ran today,” said Bahr. “Unfortunately, she’ll miss the cut of going to nationals due to the heavy amount of talented individuals, but she raced incredibly hard and left it all on the course.”

Lauren Shurson (Sr., Chanhassen, Minn.) was next, finishing in 23:39, good for a 41st place finish. She was followed by Sadie Novak-Klug (So., Waseca, Minn.) who was the 56th runner to cross the line in a time of 24:00.2. Following Novak-Klug was Lotus Schifsky (Fy., Prescott, Wis.) who finished in 24:13.2 (68th) and rounding out the Gustie scoring was Lydia Hayes (So., Decorah, Iowa) who took 87th with time of 24:34.3.

“As we move forward, we need to continue to recruit top tier talent and push and increase our overall volume with those runners we have, which is something that comes with age,” said Bahr. “We had a nice season, and I’m excited to see what our youth can do in the offseason to ensure we have an even better year in 2016.”