The No. 13 Eastern Michigan women’s cross country team turned in a strong performance at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional in Madison, Wis, on Friday, November 11. The Eagles finished the race fifth overall with 102 points.
"It was a strong team effort for us," said coach Sue Parks. "The girls did a great job of following our race plan and I was pleased with how well we moved up in the later stages of the race. The team scores were tight as we knew they would be and we fell short of our goal of getting an automatic bid. But, we have a number of wins against teams from other regions from meets throughout the season and I feel good about our chances for an at large bid. I'm very proud of our performance."
Eastern Michigan sent out seven runners for the 6K race, having three of them finish in the top-20. The Eagles were led by a strong performance by junior Jordann McDermitt, who finished fifth overall with a time of 19:59.5. Following McDermitt was junior Natalie Cizmas, who finished 14th overall with a time of 20:23.8, senior Alsu Bogdanova, who finished 18th overall with a time of 20:30.2, sophomore Sydney Meyers, who finished 25th overall with a time of 20:39.9, junior Sofie Gallein, who finished 40th overall with a time of 21:02.9, junior Jenna Wyns, who finished 95th overall with a time of 22:05.0, and junior Anna Aldrich, who finished 97th overall with a time of 22:06.3.
The Eagles finished fifth overall, finishing behind the University of Michigan (61pts), Notre Dame (91pts), the University of Wisconsin (97pts), and Michigan State University (97pts).
Eastern Michigan’s fifth place finish was enough for the Eagles to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Championships on Saturday, November 19 in Terre Haute, Indiana.
