On a cold and windy day, the Baylor women’s cross country team placed 27th at the NCAA Championship Saturday at the LaVern Gibson Course.
Saturday marked Baylor's 16th NCAA appearance and the ninth under head coach Todd Harbour. The Bears entered the race ranked No. 23 in the country, but were unable to overcome the blustery conditions.
Senior Maggie Montoya missed out on All-America honors by four places, finishing 44th in the 6,000-meter race with a time of 20:28.5.
Behind Montoya, freshman Anna West was 120th with a time of 20:55.2, while senior Peyton Thomas took 146th in 21:02.6. Sophomore Lindsey Bradley was next to cross the finish line for the Bears with a time of 21:13.8 to be 175th. Meanwhile, freshman Gabby Satterlee was BU’s final scoring runner with a time of 22:23.0 to be 235th.
Those five runners totaled 586 team points to finish 35 points behind 26th-place Harvard and 10 points ahead of 28th-place UCLA.
NOTABLES
• The temperature at race time was in the upper 30s, while the wind chill was below freezing.
• The two other runners competing for the women were Madie Zimmerman (248th, 23:08.9) and Kathryn Foreman (250th, 23:30.9).
TOP QUOTE #1
"It was just a rough day. We had higher expectations, but the weather definitely got the better of us. We just couldn’t quite overcome it. Nobody ran really, really bad, we just didn’t have anything really good happen." - head coach Todd Harbour on the race
TOP QUOTE #2
"This is a young group. We are definitely going to miss Maggie, Peyton and Madie Zimmerman. They have been a big part of what we have done. However, we still have some good times ahead of us in track, so we are looking forward to that." - Harbour on the future of his team
WHAT'S NEXT
The NCAA race completes the 2016 cross country season. Baylor's runners will be back in action with the indoor track and field season starting on Jan. 13.
