Women's cross country takes disappointing 9th
The Owls finished ninth among the 11 teams in the meet. They faced many of the top teams in the country but still felt that they could have competed better.
"It didn't help our chances of getting into nationals," sophomore Sheila Madigan said, "but I don't know if it definitely hurt it."
The format of the NCAA cross country championship is that the top two teams from each district plus a limited number of "bubble" teams, teams that are among the best in the country but did not finish in the top two places at their district meet, receive bids to compete.
A strong finish in the Penn State field would have gone a long way toward ensuring one of those precious spots for the Owls, who were ranked fourth in the district in the latest poll.
Senior Stacy Swank led the Owls with a 12th-place finish in the highly competitive field.
Junior Katy Eklof finished in 32nd place, junior Alex Gajewski finished 43rd, freshman Heather Howard placed 61st and sophomore Sheila Madigan ended up 63rd.
Running at the meet but not officially scoring for the Owls were freshman Shaquandra Roberson, who finished 65th, freshman Kari Vigerstol, who finished 73rd, and sophomore Alexis Smith, who finished 93rd.
The next meet for the Owls is the Southwest Conference Championships held at Baylor University on Monday.
They return to the same course where they finished third out of 10 earlier this year.
Madigan said that she didn't feel the pressure of coming to the conference meet as defending champs.
"I think it definitely feels like it's a different group than last year's so I don't feel any extra pressure," she said. "Everyone just wants to do well."
Upperclassmen Swank, Eklof and Gajewski will be called upon to lead the Owls to repeat their SWC Championship.
The only real meets that remains for the Owls this year are the SWC and the NCAA Championships. The team's momentum had been building toward this intense period with two straight victories before the difficult Penn State Invitational.
A year's work comes down to 10 kilometers over two short periods -- and the Owls are ready.
This item appeared in the Sports section of the October 27, 1995 issue.
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