NEWARK, Del. – The Towson University cross country team has completed the CAA Championships, placing tenth after running an average time of 24:13.10.
Elon University won the event for the fourth consecutive year with an average time of 21:34.20, earning 30 points. Abigail Hassman of Northeastern was the top finisher individually after clocking a 21:12.70.
"There has been a lot of growth throughout the fall in our ability to handle race adversity and it's a testament to all the work the ladies have put in," assistant coach Evan Freeman said. "We definitely have areas to improve upon and master as we gain more experience, but we confidently put it on the line today and as a coach I could never ask for anything more. I was really proud of our effort today."
Beighley Ayers led for the Tigers, running a time of 23:05.50 to place 38
th out of 101 runners. Ayers improved her time for this course by over a minute.
"Racing this course for the third time I knew what to expect," Ayers commented. "I knew when the hills were here, I knew when to push it and I knew how close I was to the finish so that definitely helped because the first half I could get into a rhythm and the second half I knew when to attack the hills."
Not too far behind was
Aubrey Schaffer who clocked a 24:04.10, placing 65
th. Schaffer improved her time by almost 20 seconds in comparison to her performance on this course two weeks ago.
Senior
Alison Betler completed her last CAA's with a time of 24:26.90.
"This time racing the course I definitely got out more aggressive," Betler stated. "I think that's just part of championship races in general…since [I] knew the course I tried to stay engaged and controlled, and I tried to finish the last half mile as strong as I could since I knew what the end looked like."
Morgan Loewe and
Alexis Mogensen finished within seconds of each other, clocking 24:40.10 and 24:49.10 respectively.
Jenna Zentz rounded out the team, finishing the race at 28:00.90.
The Tigers will finish the season with NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regionals on Nov. 11. The event will take place in State College, Pennsylvania.
