JMU Finishes 11th at Pre National Invitational

Saturday, October 18

Terre Haute, Ind.

12:15 p.m.

James Madison University

Pre National Invitational

10/18/2014 2:45:00 PM | Cross Country

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – The James Madison cross country team competed in its final tune-up prior to the conference meet on Saturday, finishing in 11th place as a team in the White Race at the 2014 Indiana State Pre National Invitational at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course.

JMU's top-two runners registered times that now rank in the program's top 20 all-time on the 6,000-meter course, which will serve as the host site for the 2014 NCAA Championships five weeks from today.

Junior Kathleen Stewart (Holland, Pa./Council Rock South) was Madison's lead runner once again this weekend, as she completed the trek in 22:11.8, to finish 20th out of the 213-person field. That mark was good for 12th-best in program history at the Terre Haute course.

Nearly 20 seconds later, sophomore Tessa Mundell (Mohnton, Pa./Governor Mifflin) crossed the finish line in 33rd place with a time of 22:31.1. Her time was good enough for 19th-best in team history at the course.

Sophomore Carol Strock (Mechanicsburg, Pa./Cumberland Valley) was the No. 3 runner for the second race in a row, clocking a time of 23:06.1 to snag 68th place (66th scoring). Following her was senior Rachel Hagen (Sterling, Va./Potomac Falls), who took 102nd place (100th scoring) in 23:26.4. Rounding out the team's day was freshman Erica Gray (Yardley, Pa./Pennsbury) as she placed 142nd (140th scoring) with her time of 23:58.8.

The Dukes tallied 359 points (20-33-66-100-140) to finish in 11th place out of the 33 teams competing. They were the second-ranked team in the Southeast region, taking runner-up to Louisville, which placed fourth overall. A total of five region teams partook in the White Race, including Western Kentucky (18th), Liberty (25th) and UNCG (30th).

UMKC's Courtney Frerichs won the 6K race in 20:55.5, which was 35.8 seconds faster than the next-fastest runner. On the team side, Washington State won the team title with 143 points (2-21-37-38-45) after placing all scorers in the top 50.

Three other student-athletes also competed in the Open Race Saturday, which had a field of 96 runners. Sophomore Meghan Malloy (Haddonfield, N.J./Haddonfield Memorial) finished 57th with a time of 24:19.7, followed by senior Kristen Landry (Boonton Township, N.J./Mountain Lakes), who took 73rd in 24:40.8, and freshman Haley Mahn (Pennington, N.J./Hopewell Valley), who placed 88th in 25:54.9.

JMU returns to action in two weeks (Nov. 1) when it runs at the 2014 CAA Championships, hosted by Northeastern University in Boston.