Sept. 13, 2008
Results | Photo Gallery 
ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Navy women's cross country runner Amy Watson (Jr./Hampstead, Md.) bested the field of 158 runners to help the Midshipmen to a second-place performance among a 15-team field for the Salty Dog Invitational on a hot and humid Saturday morning.
Richmond won the team title with a team score of 42 points, just enough to edge Navy's 55 points. Maryland placed third with 75 points, followed by Malone's 127 points and Furman's 157 points to round out the top-five teams.
"We knew coming in that Richmond was going to be tough," stated Navy head coach Karen Boyle. "We needed to run steady, stay in contact and try to break up some of their top runners through the Bertha loop. I thought we had an impressive showing with a young team. This was the newcomers first 6k race, which was a tough test with the course and the heat."
Watson, the reigning Patriot League Runner of the Week for the past-two weeks, produced a time of 22:26, a full 13 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Nicol Traynor from Richmond. In fact, Watson's clocking on Saturday ranks as the ninth-best time in USNA Cross Country Course history and the third-best time by a Navy runner.
"It's all confidence with Amy," said Boyle. "When she won the Army-Navy race last year, it established a lot of her confidence. It has spiraled from that, through the track season last year and this cross country season. She was smart enough to know how important summer training is and came into this season with lofty goals."
Erica Ziel (Jr./Saginaw, Mich.) completed the race in 23:14 for ninth place, soon followed by Marina McGrail's (Fr./Manchester, Vt.) 23:21 showing for 12th place. Classmate Jess Palacio (Fr./Sun Valley, Nev.) landed in 16th place with a time of 23:32 and Katie Rentz (So./San Diego, Calif.) rounded out the scoring five with a 23:33 clocking for 17th place.
Navy will return to action on Saturday, Sept. 27, when it heads up to the Roy Griak Invitational in Falcon Heights, Minn. Race time is slated for 1 p.m. ET.
