Oct. 31, 2015 Complete Results
HAMILTON, N.Y. - Navy women's cross country senior Kelley Robinson (Nederlands, Colo.) paced Navy to a second-place finish with her first career individual league title at the Patriot League Championship on Saturday at Colgate's Harry Lang Course.
"We are definitely happy to have finished ahead of Boston, especially running a strong race finishing a close second to Bucknell," Navy head coach Karen Boyle said. "Unfortunately, we came up short taking down the Bison's second pack of runners."
Robinson led the field with a time of 21:14.0. The Nederlands, Colorado, native became the first Midshipmen and sixth Patriot League women's cross country runner in league history to record first team all-league finishes in all four years.
"Kelley ran a phenomenal race, storming through three Bucknell runners for a very strong finish," Boyle said about Robinson's performance.
Finishing behind Robinson was freshman Erin McDonnell (Traverse City, Mich.) in seventh place, clocking a time 21:52.0. McDonnell was the first Patriot League freshman runner to cross the finish line to garner Rookie of the Meet honors. It was just the second time in program history that Navy recorded both the Runner and Rookie of the Meet in the same race.
"Erin also ran a fearless race, not intimidated by the field to finish strong," said Boyle about Navy's freshman.
McDonnell's classmate Ali Valenti (Lansdale, Pa.) finished six seconds behind her with a time of 21:58.1 for 10th place. Valenti's 10th-place finish garnered second team all-league honors.
Senior team captain Morgan O'Connor (Sammamish, Wash.) and junior Mary Cate Scully (Fairfax Station, Va.) rounded out Navy's top-five runners, crossing the tape at the same time of 21:14.2 for 16th and 17th place, respectively.
Bucknell edged out Navy for first place with 34 points and three top-five finishers. Behind Navy's 51 points was Boston University (104), Holy Cross (109) and Army West Point (125) to round out the top five. American (174), Lehigh (176), Loyola (195), Lafayette (243) and Colgate (251) rounded out the field of 10.
Navy will have an extra week to prepare for the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional, which is hosted by Princeton, on Friday, Nov. 13.
