WOMEN'S CROSS COUNTRY FINISHES 15TH AT CHILE PEPPER FESTIVAL

Saturday, October 14

Fayetteville, Ark.

10:30 a.m.

James Madison University

Chile Pepper Festival

WOMEN'S CROSS COUNTRY FINISHES 15TH AT CHILE PEPPER FESTIVAL

10/14/2006 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark., Oct. 14, 2006 - James Madison senior Dena Spickard (Marion, Va./Marion) finished 23rd individually to lead the women's cross country team to a 15th-place finish at Arkansas' Chile Pepper Festival Saturday morning.

Spickard was timed in 21 minutes 4.9 seconds, on the 6,000-meter course. It was her best clocking ever in a 6,000-meter cross country race. Her previous best was 21:08 on Sept. 29 at the Paul Short Run at Lehigh.

Nationally fourth-ranked Arkansas easily won its first Chile Pepper title since 2002. The Razorbacks finished with 41 points, ahead of 20th-ranked Duke, which finished with 133 points. Duke was followed by 28th-ranked Texas Tech (136), which finished a close third, number 30th Virginia Tech (169) and 19th-ranked Baylor (181).

Some 347 runners completed the race, in which Texas Tech's Sally Kipyego and Desiraye Osburn, running unattached finished one-twp individually with times of 19:29.3 and 19:55.0.

Other JMU runners included sophomore Christy Ward (Midlothian, Va./James River), 72nd in 22:09; junior Michelle Beardmore (Front Royal, Va./Warren County), 120th in 22:44; sophomore Aspen Foster (Virginia Beach, Va./Frank W. Cox), 141st in 22:55; freshman Amber Lussier (Stafford, Va./North Stafford), 191st in 23:32; junior Gina Casella (Charlottesville, Va./Western Albemarle), 207th in 23:44; freshman Emily Hellmuth (Arlington, Va.), 246th in 24:15; and senior Jennifer Chapman (Centreville, Va./Wesfield), 269th in 25:04.