Cross Country Finishes Season Strong At NCAA West Regional
Nov. 9, 2012
SEATTLE, Wash. - The Oregon State women's cross country team put together arguably its best performance of the year in the season's last race, using a slew of personal bests to finish 15th as a team at the 2012 NCAA Cross Country West Regional Championships on Friday afternoon.
Kinsey Gomez and Sandra Martinez, the Beavers' two runners with previous regional experience, paced OSU at Jefferson Park Golf Course in Seattle. Both runners finished the 6K course in 21:09 to claim 61st and 62nd place and easily eclipse their NCAA appearances from years past. Gomez ran 22:12 at last year's regional meet and Martinez posted a time of 21:32 in 2010.
The duo was followed by a bevy of first-year Oregon State student-athletes. Kira Kelly came in 85th with a time of 21:27, Teresa Lawson 99th in 21:37 and Taylor Nowlin 135th in 22:08. Those five scorers for the Beavers posted a combined 442 to put OSU 15th, the program's highest finish since 2009 (9th).
Adrienne Demaree crossed the line in 22:13 (137th) and Samantha Lewis in 22:19 (147th) to round out Oregon State's group on the afternoon. Save for Gomez, Martinez and Nowlin, all of the Beavers who ran today are in their first season of competition wearing the Orange & Black.
"Overall it was a really good day and a great way to finish," Oregon State head coach Kelly Sullivan said. "We got exactly what we wanted today. We went in healthy, it was a great course and Washington put on a great race for what is by far the deepest best region in the country."
Gomez, Martinez, Kelly, Lawson, Nowlin, Demaree and Lewis posted some of the best collective performances the cross country program has seen in some time. Gomez and Martinez boosted themselves to fourth place on OSU's all-time 6K list with their 21:09 times. Kira Kelly (21:27) also moved into 11th as part of that same renowned group and Teresa Lawson (21:37) put herself 14th.
"All of seven of them ran personal bests today, which is pretty rare," Sullivan said. "We ran exceptionally well today and placed higher than we did last year with almost an entirely new team. For this group to place higher than last year's squad that had more depth and experience - that was a big step for them today."
The Beavers' effort today was all the more impressive considering unlucky falls and sicknesses hampered the team at the Pac-12 Championships on Oct. 27. With 28 universities scoring and 207 runners in the field, the atmosphere and course was much tougher to navigate than in Los Angeles two weeks ago.
Oregon State's individual places in a nearly 30-team event today almost matched identically to its finishes in the conference's 12-member event, which speaks volumes of how well the Beavers equipped themselves this afternoon.
"They hung together really well after the conference meet," Sullivan said of his team. "Obviously our conference is pretty loaded so the team did a really good job today. This is better than we could have hoped for in many ways. All you have to do is go look at times from two weeks ago (Pac-12) and from Kentucky (NCAA Pre-Nationals) to see how much faster we ran. In Kentucky we only had one less than 22 minutes. Today, on a fairly similar type of course with a field twice as large and a lot more bodies we posted almost the same finish overall."
15. 442 Oregon State
61. Kinsey Gomez - 21:09
62. Sandra Martinez - 21:09
85. Kira Kelly - 21:27
99. Teresa Lawson - 21:37
135. Taylor Nowlin - 22:08
(137). Adrienne Demaree - 22:13
(147). Samantha Lewis - 22:19
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