No. 1 Women’s Cross Country takes NAIA Appalachian Challenge title

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (October 21, 2022) – Milligan University's No. 1-ranked women's cross country team had three of the top four finishers and took the meet title at the NAIA Appalachian Challenge at Sequoyah Park on Knoxville on Friday morning.

The Buffs finished ahead of No. 16 William Carey, No. 18 Montreat and two additional teams receiving votes in the latest NAIA top 25 rankings, SCAD Savannah and Southeastern. Milligan won the event with a team score of 37. William Carey and Montreat followed with team scores of 81. The Buffs finished with a total team time of 90:50 and a one-through-five spread of 1:45.

"Two wins over two really good nationally ranked teams, so we'll take that," said head coach Chris Layne. "We did push it a little bit from the gun and I thought once again they handled that well. We're yet to see them race like they've trained, so the hope is once we get them freshened up we'll see that happen as we turn towards the championship part of our season."

Ellen Mary Kearney, Alyssa Bearzi and Caitlin Dominy finished second, third and fourth overall in the 120-woman race. Kearney improved her personal best time by a second at 17:21. Bearzi and Dominy joined Kearney in the top five as Bearzi ran 17:52 and Dominy crossed at 18:00.

Lizzy Lucason finished 11th in 18:29 and Gracie Allen ran a season-best 5k time of 19:07 to finish 18th. Olivia Doran made it six Buffs in the top 20 as she finished 20th in 19:11.

Sophia Jeffers set a personal best 5k time of 19:29 to finish 27th. Ashlyn Haas placed 33rd in 19:39 and Anna Jones was 39th in 19:45 and Natalie Fellers was 46th in 19:58.

"I feel like we learned a lot in the women's race today," said Layne. "We got a little aggressive in spots and just need to fine tune a few things over the next two weeks so we're heading into conference with a solid game plan."

The Buffs set their sights on the Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) Championships on Nov. 5 in Columbia, S.C.