BEREA, OHIO -- The Baldwin Wallace University women's cross country team placed first and captured the 16th Ohio Athletic Conference Championship in program history at the 2009 OAC Championship Meet this afternoon (Saturday, October 31, 2009) in Wilmington, Ohio. The Yellow Jacket women had six runners earn all-conference honors and finished with 37 points to beat the second-place team by 35 points. The BW men landed one competitor on the All-OAC squad and totaled 122 points to place fifth.
"I'm very proud of the way both teams ran," said veteran Head Coach Bill Taraschke.
"The women had their best race of the year and certainly when you have six All-OAC finishers, that is a strong performance. Finally, everyone was able to come together for their best race of the year."
Highlighting the meet for the women's team was the first-team All-OAC trio of senior D'Arcy Hlavin (Berea), junior Kim Chinn (Zanesville/ West Muskingum) and freshman Sarah Rospert (Milan/ Edison).
Hlavin, the 2008 OAC individual champion, placed third overall of 115 competitors with a time of 22:11.34.Chinn placed fifth overall with a time of 22:23.38 and Rospert was eighth with a time of 22:47.4.
The Yellow Jackets also had three runners earn second-team All-OAC honors. Junior Karin Coyne (Columbia Station/ Columbia) was 10th in 23:08.96, junior Katie White (Berea) was 11th with a time of 23:10.83, and junior Krysten Kovach (North Royalton/ Parma Padua Franciscan) placed 13th with a time of 23:18.74.
Individually for the men, junior Brian Gibbons (Rocky River) placed seventh of 147 runners with a time of 25:44.60 and received first-team all-conference honors.
"Brian (Gibbons) did a great job of stepping up to be a front-runner," said Taraschke. The rest of the guys did a nice job of running as a pack.
Also scoring for the men, sophomore Zachary Szablewski (Tiffin/ Calvert) finished 22nd in 26:31.25, freshman Kenneth Janosko (Mentor) was 30th in 26:47.64, senior James Eberts (North Canton/ Hoover)was 32nd in 26:50.16, and senior Brian Campbell (Berea) was 35th in 26:55.81.
The Yellow Jackets are back in action on Saturday, November 14 at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional Championship hosted by Rose-Hulman (Ind.) in Terre Haute, Indiana. BW also is the host institution for the 2009 NCAA National Championship Meet on Saturday, Nov. 21 in Highland Hills. For more information on the meet or to volunteer, visit: http://www.bw.edu/athletics/09ccnationals/
FOR MORE BW Sports Information, please contact Sports Information Director Kevin Ruple by telephone at 440-826-2327 and e-mail at kruple@bw.edu or Assistant SID Nick Minerd by phone at 440-826-2780 and e-mail at nminerd@bw.edu. Fans can access the latest BW athletics information at www.bw.edu/athletics and we invite you to join us on Twitter at http://twitter@bwathletics.com.
