The Kentucky Wesleyan women’s cross country team concluded their season on Saturday at the NCAA Regional hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Running in extremely cold and snowy conditions, the Panthers took 26th out of the 33 teams competing.
“Yesterday, encapsulated the season. We just missed the shot, but we’re close enough at the end of the game,” said head coach Sol Stephens. “In its totality, the ladies put together one of the best team seasons ever. Within its isolation, we still had personal best times and massive improvements. We just couldn’t get the stars to align to benefit us maximally at the same time at the same race. One of the fortunate beauties about our sport, all signs can show to performance standards, prep is done, effort was given but the scoreboard doesn’t tell the entirety.”
As she has done most of the season, sophomore Abigail Lesniak led the way for the Panthers. She ran a time of 23:39 to take 95th out of 214 runners. Senior Karlee Hoffman was the second Panther across the finish line, taking 114th with a finish of 24:23. Emery Crume wasn’t far behind Hoffman, running a time of 24:48 to take 151st.
Still fresh off an injury, Kate Keller ran a strong time of 25:35. Abby Greene closed out the scoring for the Panthers by running a season best time of 26:20. Sarah Vanderhoof finished her race with a time of 27:29 and Lucy Knutson rounded it out for Wesleyan with a 27:53.
“They fought their way through. I’m proud of these ladies. I’m honored and blessed to coach them. All the ups and downs, lefts and rights – they definitely challenge and keep me on my toes. I thoroughly enjoyed watching developments of these past 2 cross seasons of the seniors, Crume, Knutson and Dossett. They’ve improved on the course, maintained excellence in the classroom all while adjusting to change of training philosophy. We’ve had a good season and back to the drawing board…to be continued…”
