University of Richmond Athletics
Women's Cross Country Wins Third-Straight Race
09/30/2006 | Cross Country
Sept. 30, 2006
Results | Photo Gallery
FAIRFAX, Va. - The Richmond women's cross country team won its third-straight race to start the season, finishing 17 points ahead of Atlantic 10 rival Charlotte in a 12-team field at the George Mason Invational.
"It was good to get in a race against our first Atlantic 10 competition of the season," Richmond women's coach Lori Taylor said. "We pretty much went head-to-head with Charlotte today and we beat them pretty solidly. The girls ran really well and we beat one of the top teams in our conference."
The Spiders scored 27 points, finishing ahead of Charlotte (44). Richmond has won all three races it has competed in this season, including the Spider Alumni Open and the Navy Salty Dog Invitational. Richmond's men's team finished fourth out of 13 teams with 107 points.
Richmond junior Kylee Schuler led the Spider women's team with a fourth-place finish in a time of 22:00.79 on the 6K course. Freshman Amy Van Alstine followed in fifth place in 22:02.83 and senior Amanda Russell finished sixth in 22:29.34.
Freshman Alyssa Mankin took eighth in 22:32.74, while sophomore Mary Bertram placed ninth in 22:39.40. Sophomore Karen Guthrie finished 14th in 22:56.83, junior Shelby Faircloth was 21st (23:28.50) and sophomore Emily Nagle took 56th (25:05.50).
"We need to work on finishing a bit better in order to really step it up here with the conference meet coming up," Taylor said.
 Hunter Willis led the Spider men's team with a 13th-place finish.  |
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On the men's side, junior Hunter Willis led the Spiders with a 13th place finish in 25:26.78 and freshman Andrew Benford followed in 14th place in 25:29.05. Freshman Matt Llano took 20th in 25:45.05 and junior Jonathan Molz followed in 25:45.77 to take 21st.
"We had a great one to four split of 17 seconds, but we needed a fifth runner today," Richmond head coach Steve Taylor said. "We have a number of young men who are capable of being there, but for whatever reason nobody was close today. Overall it was a good race. We're definitely pleased with the top four."
Junior Mike Stubbs finished 40th (26:22.10), freshman Jon Wilson took 50th (26:39.25) and sophomore Jeff Strojny was 71st (27:09.44). Sophomore Sean Welsh finished 78th (27:21.84), sophomore Garrett Graham was 83rd (27:29.67), freshman Ryan Buhl took 84th (27:34.57) and sophomore Dan Petty was 106th (29:11.23).
Richmond returns to action on Oct. 14 at the Winthrop Fall Classic, the Spiders last tune-up before the Atlantic 10 Championship on Oct. 28 in Pittsburgh, Pa.