LEWISBURG, Pa. – The Navy women's cross country team began its 2018 season with a successful showing at the Bison Open on Friday. Hosted by Bucknell University, the Mids were one of 10 teams to compete in an abbreviated 4,000-meter race. With difficult weather conditions forecasted for the competition in Lewisburg, earlier this week the race officials decided to shorten the course and also remove team scoring. These alterations had little effect on Navy's Grace West (Pinehurst, N.C.) as the junior won the race with a time of 14:07.6, 5.4 seconds ahead of the 132-participant field.
 
"I'm happy with the work we put in today," remarked head coach Karen Boyle. "Being a 4K race gave us confidence to get out faster and push through being uncomfortable. Grace had a nice win over a dominant Penn team, as well as the five Patriot League teams at the meet.
 
"Having Grace and Claire [Ostrowski] up front, and a 25-second split between our first and fifth runners give us great optimism for a strong, successful season!"
 
Trailing her teammate Claire Ostrowski (Jr., Virginia Beach, Va.) slightly at the 1.85K mark with a time of 6:33.4, West took the lead over the second half of the race and pulled away to complete the course at 14:07.6.
 
Ostrowski, a front-runner over the first half of the meet, stayed tight with West and clocked in fourth overall at 14:14.2.
 
West and Ostrowski added some diversity to the top-10 as the Penn Quakers, the seventh-ranked team in the preseason Mid-Atlantic regional poll, secured seven of those 10 positions. Lehigh's Hannah Bonaguidi was the only non-Penn or Navy athlete in the top-10 as she placed second with a 14:13.0 result.
 
Navy's junior class continued to represent itself well as Karla Mendoza (Madison, Neb.) was the third Mid to finish as she recorded a time of 14:29.4, good for 17^th overall.
 
Rachel Fairbanks (Sr., Jamesville, N.Y.) and Erin McDonnell (Sr., Traverse City, Mich.) rounded out Navy's top-five finishers as Fairbanks took 20^th at 14:31.1 before McDonell clocked in 1.5 seconds after in 23^rd at 14:32.6.
 
Junior Caitlin Schmitt (Evergreen, Colo.) and seniors Annika Pearson (Glen Ellyn, Ill.) and Ali Valenti (Lansdale, Pa.) gave the Midshipmen squad eight of the top-40 runners at the meet in Lewisburg. Schmitt came in 33^rd with a time of 14:46.4 before Pearson and Valenti posted times of 14:51.9 and 14:57.1 to place 36^th and 40^th overall, respectively.
 
Kathleen Murphy (Westport, Conn.) was the top-finishing freshman competitor for Navy on Friday as she notched a 61^st-place finish at 15:19.0.
 
Navy will continue early-season action next Friday, Sept. 7 in State College, Pa. at the Penn State Invitational.