HAMILTON, N.Y. – The Navy women's cross country team turned in a solid performance at Saturday's Patriot League Championship as the squad's first four runners all placed within the top-25. As a result of these individual efforts, the Mids finished fourth overall in the team standings with 90 team points. Junior
Emily Craig (Reistertown, Md.) led the Mids on Saturday as she crossed the finish line of the 6k Harry Lang Cross Country Course on the campus of Colgate University in fourth place. Boston University held off Bucknell in the standings to earn the team title, 52-59.
The standings on Saturday saw Boston and Bucknell clustered at the top in first and second place before Army and Navy went back-to-back in third and fourth with respective point totals of 87 and 90. Lehigh rounded out the top-five with 107 points. The second half of the standings saw Holy Cross finish in sixth with 143 points and Lafayette place seventh with 150. Loyola (246), American (287) and Colgate (293) completed the ten-team field.
Craig was Navy's top runner throughout Saturday's meet as she crossed the 2.4k and 5.1k checkpoints within the top-three positions in both occasions. Constantly jockeying for position with Bucknell's Olivia Dyer down the stretch, Craig was overtaken late as Dyer clocked in at 22:04.6 ahead of Craig's 22:08.0. In a wide-open race, five different programs had runners finish in the top-nine. Boston University's Abigail Gugel was the individual champion with a time of 21:41.2.
Freshman
Elizabeth Sullivan (Portsmouth, R.I.) made a late push of her own to grab a spot in the top-14 and the All-Patriot League honors that accompany it. Sitting in 16th place with less than 1,000 meters to go, she surpassed a pair of runners to cross the line in 14th with a time of 22:38.0. Her fellow freshman teammate
Lauren Moore (Danbury, Conn.) was just four spots back in 18th courtesy of her 22:48.3 effort.
Navy's final two scorers on Saturday were
Anna Kovacs (So., Toledo, Ohio) and
Annie Imhof (Jr., Great Mills, Md.). Kovacs turned in a time of 22:57.1 that was good for 25th place, while Imhof crossed in 29th place at 23:07.3.
A pair of sophomores,
Meghan Sculli (Hilliard, Ohio) and
Maddie Warrender (Mount Wolf, Pa.) were the sixth and seventh Mids to finish the 6k course as the duo were within 3.6 seconds of each other as Sculli clocked in at 23:14.6 and Warrender at 23:18.2. Sculli placed 34th, while Warrender was 37th overall in the field of 110 runners.
"I am happy for Emily and Elizabeth both earning All-Patriot League honors today," remarked head coach
Kim Lewnes. "The women got after it early on in the race and competed throughout, but in the end we came up short of our team goals. We will use this disappointment as motivation for regionals in two weeks.
"It was a competitive year in the Patriot League with many strong teams fighting for the championship. It hurt having a couple of our top runners out with injuries this season, but our top-seven from today will all be back with their eyes on gold for 2020."
Both Craig and Sullivan earned All-Patriot League honors as Craig earned a spot on the first team, while Sullivan was recognized on the second team.
Next up for Navy is more postseason racing, this time on Friday, Nov. 15 at the 2019 NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional Championships in Bethlehem, Pa.
