By JOHN MCGRORTY
On Saturday, the women’s cross country team competed in the NCAA National Championships in Terre Haute, Ind. The Red ranked 24th nationally prior to the National Championships finished 23rd overall, with a final score of 570 points. Furthermore, the Red was lead by an outstanding finish from senior Rachel Sorna who finished 14th overall in a field of over 250 runners.
The Red had a strong showing and was able to finish higher than its regular season ranking. The women’s cross country team finished off its 2013 season with an incredibly impressive finish at the NCAA National Championships.
“The team feels great about their performance at the NCAA National Championships. This meet is an extremely hard a atmosphere, caliber and intensity of the meet is very high. It is hard to expect all seven runners to race well, and that’s rare, however all seven Cornell runners raced extremely well,” assistant coach Artie Smith said. “Going in we were ranked 24th, and we finished 23rd. We exceeded expectations. This is even more remarkable because our number two runners was not running. This was made possible because people stepped up and fill shoes. We were able to do better then ranks and the poll people thought we would do which was remarkable. The theme of this season has been lots of different people stepping up and scoring for us, and we saw that yesterday. The team is very happy and as was I as the coach.”
CONNOR ARCHARD / SUN SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHERSenior Rachel Sorna finished 14th in a heat of 250 runners at Nationals.