On Nov. 15, the men’s and women’s cross-country teams both competed at the South/Southeast Regional Championships meet in Berry, Georgia and placed within the top 15 teams.
The women finished sixth with only 23 points separating them from the second place team, Christopher Newport University (Va.), which qualified to race in the National Championship meet.
Emory University (Ga.) were the winners of the women’s competition.
The men finished in 11th place in the meet. Emory also took first place in the men’s event.
Senior Nicola Hill led the way for the Tigers with a personal best time of 22:52.86 to give her a 10th place finish””just short of the mark to advance individually to the National Championship. Hill received All-Region honors for the third straight season.
“I couldn’t have asked for them to do any more than what they did,” said head coach Emily Daum. “Nicola ran the best race of her collegiate career. She left it all out there on the field, which was awesome.
Also finishing on the first All-Region team were first years Melissa Whitman and Emma MacEachern. Whitman finished in 20th (23:11.83), while MacEachern finished in 30th (23:33.23) in the 6k race.
According to Daum, it is the first time Trinity first-year runners have made the All-Region team in the past three years.
Rounding out the top five for the Tigers were junior Mariana Sigala and senior Genevieve Primeau.
“Everyone did pretty well””we all raced as hard as we could””so I’m really happy about where we finished,” Whitman said. “It is not like we just have one person that is really good; we have a solid group of runners that can pick each other up.”
Junior Taylor Piske was the top finisher with a career-best 16th place. He ran the 8k race in 26:01.29 to also earn All-Region honors for his third straight season.
Sophomore Austin Brown finished second for the Tigers coming in 47th place with a time of 27:04.49.
First years Michael Erikson, Jacob Hammond and Daniel Henkes rounded out the top five finishers for the Tigers.
All four were competing in the first regional meet of their careers.
“Everyone had a good race with the exception of the start,” Brown said. “I don’t think we had our minds set on going out as hard as we needed to.”
This was the first regional meet for four of the five Tiger men. All five of the men will return to compete for Trinity next season and many women return as well.
“I know everyone wanted to place a little bit better as a team, and that just didn’t end up happening for us…unfortunately,” Daum said. “We have everyone on the team that actually wants to be there and working hard”¦and I really am looking forward to seeing all the hard work that these kids put in the next year.”
