BOWLING GREEN, Ky. - Austin Peay State University women's
cross country team put together a quality performance in its first effort at
the five-kilometer distance, finishing fourth at the Old Timers Classic,
Saturday morning at Kereiakes Park.
The Lady Govs finished in front of three of the four Ohio
Valley Conference schools competing at the meet, which was scored in a dual
format with each team's placing compared to each of the other teams. Austin
Peay defeated Morehead State, Tennessee Tech and UT Martin while losing to
league preseason favorite Eastern Kentucky.
Freshman Miranda Weed led the Lady Govs effort with a
19th-place finish, completing the five-kilometer course in 20:01.04. Junior
Janelle Avery followed closely behind in 24th, posting a time of 20:21.39. She
was followed immediately by freshman Xiamar Richards in 25th with a time of
20:22.75. Just behind them was freshman Kendra Kirksey who finished 30th with a
time of 20:36.50.
But as has been the case in the season's first two meets,
the Lady Govs second group was well behind the main pack. Sophomore Alyssa Molnar (23:10.57) was 59th, 29 spots behind Kirksey. Freshman Kayla Satterly
(24:58.59) was 67th, freshman Megan Barbarotto (25:08.08) was 68th and freshman
Shannon Christian (27:00.42) was 70th.
"We beat three out of four
conference foes and that is always a good thing," said APSU head coach Doug Molnar. "We had a nice pack with the first four runners, but we still need to
close down our gap. It was much better than last week and I thought it was good
through two miles, but we let it slip away over the final mile. Weed, Avery,
Richards, and Kirksey were aggressive over the last mile and passed a fair
amount of people so that is always a good sign of our strength."
- AP -