Flames 4th overall, top NAIA finisher at Chile Pepper
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The College of Saint Mary cross country team continues to smash through barriers, and Saturday was another example of that.
The Flames turned in another historical team performance, leading the NAIA entries en route to a fourth-place finish at the 37th-annual Chile Pepper Festival run on the University of Arkansas' home course.
CSM finished with 144 team points and was only nine points from claiming the team championship, ending behind three NCAA Division II schools: Union University (Tenn.) with 135, Rockhurst University (Mo.) with 139 and Southeastern Oklahoma State with 141. There were 25 schools who fielded full teams and 10 more who entered partial teams.
"What an incredible race,'' CSM Coach Derek Fey said. "Every statistic from this race is the best in our program's history: total team time, average time per runner, 1 through 5 and 1 through 7 pack time – you name it and we set the program standard today.''
A tightly bunched group of seven runners was the key to the remarkable effort. Leading the group of five who figured in the team scoring was Josie Karnik. The sophomore out of Papillion-La Vista finished the 5,000-meter course in 25th place, clocking 19:23.7.
Sophomore Olivia Elbert was next in 34th (19:38.8), followed closely by senior Kiley Craft in 35th (19:39.0), junior Mira Fosmer in 36th (19:41.1) and junior Yenifer Juan Jesus in 38th (19:41.1).
Crossing within 15 seconds of Juan Jesus were senior Corinne Mead, 44th in 19:54.3 and sophomore Carly Henderson, 45th in 20:00.9.
The Flames turned on a ferocious kick in the last half of the race. They were in 12th place after one mile, so they moved up eight places over the final two miles.
"We ran over a minute faster than we did here last year,'' Fey said. "Our first five finished 22 seconds apart. Our first seven finished 37 seconds apart.
"We spoke the day before that I thought we were capable of running an average of under 19:40 for our first five runners. We ran 19:37.''
Nobody had more depth than CSM on Saturday. Of the 20 schools who had at least seven runners, no one had a seventh-place finisher faster than Henderson's 20:00.9.
"We were hoping to repeat our team title,'' Fey said. "But I told them that we can't control who shows up at a meet. We were the top NAIA team. We were beat by three NCAA Division II teams and we were within 10 points of winning the meet.
"Would it have been nice to win? Yeah, but I'd take this result over last year every time. I'd love to list all the personal bests set today, but there's not enough room on this webpage.''
Here are the other CSM finishers:
98, Lily Ray 21:07.4; 105, Sarah Dickas 21:11.8; 123, Becka Karnik 21:44.6; 126, Kaitlyn Thalman 21:47.7; 136, Peyton Bell 22:02.0; 170, Natalie Briggs 22:46.1; 192, Evie Kelly 23:48.6.
Great competition within the team continues to drive the results on meet day, Fey said.
"My favorite part of this season is that there is no pecking order on this team,'' he said. "There are seven or eight runners at any given time who can be in our top five, and there's been tons of movement within our top five. That's the sign of a strong team.''
CSM returns to action on Oct. 11 at the Dordt Classic in Sioux Center, Iowa.