Junior Marie Brandewiede remained undefeated on her home cross country course this season, as her individual victory led a short-handed Rhodes squad to a 2nd place team finish. The University of Alabama at Huntsville won the fifteen-team meet with 52 points. Captain and front-running senior Amy Paine sat out of her last home cross country meet in order to take law school entrance exams. Rhodes' bested conference foes Sewanee (6th), Hendrix (11th), and Southwestern (13th), although the Lynx ran just eight runners due to illness and law school entrance exam conflicts.
Brandewiede used a late-race surge to capture the Rhodes Invitational title. The St. Louis native was inspired by the presence of her family, as she cruised to a personal best of 18:51 on the rolling course at Plough Park, her first finish under 19 minutes. Senior Elizabeth Wester was Rhodes' number two woman, earning 6th place with a time of 19:24. Freshman Haley McConaghy earned a seasonal best time of 20:27, good for 24th place as the Lynx third runner. Senior Lauren Glas broke 21 minutes for just the second time in her career, taking 31st place with a time of 20:51, while junior Abbey Walker obliterated her previous personal best by running 21:09 for 35th place as Rhodes' final scoring runner. May King (42nd in 21:25) and Betsy Bogler, whose 44th place finish in 21:29 represented her first race of the season following a late-summer knee injury, rounded out the Lynx top seven.
In all, seven of the eight Lynx runners earned seasonal or career bests, and all but one finished in the top half of the 115-runner field. Assistant coach Dan Schofer was encouraged by many strong performances, commenting, "I was especially pleased by the efforts of our middle pack runners, as they continue to show strong signs that they will be able to close the gap between our fourth and fifth women."
Results
