- The Raiders celebrate after a point over Midland in the GPAC tournament. The top-seeded Raiders were set to take on Hastings on Thursday night.
The Northwestern Women’s cross country team barely missed out on the opportunity to run at Nationals as a whole, but senior Charity Miles finished second in a time of 18:24 to qualify individually.
The Lady Raiders were one place away from making it on a wild-card berth to the National meet. The system failed the Raiders as they were ranked higher than 12 teams who made it automatically because they won their conference. Morningside will be representing the GPAC after winning the meet.
Senior Sara Hess posted an 18:52 to finish seventh at the meet. She was one spot away from qualifying individually. This is the third straight year a Raider has been the one left out (Allison Weeldreyer in 2009 and Jenna Sorensen in 2008). Senior Sorenson finished 11th and ran a 19:14. Junior Teresa Scholten (19:29) and freshman Dawn Gildersleeve (19:36) finished 17th and 24th, respectively.
Senior Heidi Hildebrandt ran a personal record of 20:18 and finished 36th. Also running her last career race was senior Akacia Wentworth (21:33) who finished 62nd.
The National meet will be held on November 20th in Vancouver, Wash.