SHELBYVILLE, Ind. – For the first time in school history, a Baldwin Wallace University cross country program captured a regional title as the women's team won the 2018 NCAA Division III Great Lakes Regional Championships, hosted by Franklin (Ind.) College at the Blue River Park.
BW finished first of 33 teams with 114 points, besting second place Allegheny (Pa.) College by seven points. By finishing as the top two teams, both BW and Allegheny receive automatic bids to the 2018 NCAA Division III National Championships. The Yellow Jackets also defeated four-time defending Ohio Athletic Conference champion Otterbein University by 68 points as the Cardinals placed sixth.
This year's championship finish marks the first time any BW cross country program has captured a regional team title. Previously, the women's team had placed as high as second on four separate occasions: 1987, 1999, 2001 and 2002. As a team, the Yellow Jackets will return to the NCAA Championship meet for the first time since 2009 and for the eighth time in program history.
"We've been waiting for this race from our women pretty much all season," said Coordinator of Cross Country and Track and Field and Head Cross Country Coach Joe Eby. "We've had a season full of almosts and what-ifs and not quites. We knew what we were capable of and this is the first time we went out and ran with a ton of confidence. They just went out and executed the plan that we gave them to a T. They all did it. They all ran their races. I knew we were running well but I didn't realize how well we were running until about a mile left in the race. One of my former bosses, the coach at DePauw, told me that we were going to get in. A lot can happen in the last mile so I went sprinting across the field and started telling them that they can do it."
All of the Yellow Jackets top-five runners earned All-Great Lakes Region honors by finishing in the top 35, led by junior three-time All-OAC and Academic All-OAC performer Kelly Brennan (Akron/Walsh Jesuit). Brennan placed seventh overall of 240 runners in a season-best time of 21:58.5, marking the first time the junior ran a 6k event under 22 minutes since 2015. Junior two-time All-OAC and Academic All-OAC performer Bella Pendola (Warsaw/River View) was the next to cross the finish line as she took 19th in 22:28.6. Both repeated as All-Great Lakes Region performers, Brennan for the third time in her career.
Two sophomore All-OAC performers in Madison Kile (North Canton/Hoover) and Hastings Marek (Pataskala/Watkins Memorial) broke the 23-minute barrier for the first time in their careers. Kile turned in a career-best 22:49.4 time to place 25th and earn her second career All-Great Lakes Region honor while Marek finished in 29th place in a career-best time of 22:52.7 for her first All-Great Lakes Region accolade. Freshman Alyssa Laughner (Howard, Pa./Central Mountain) rounded out the top five with a 34th-place finish to also earn her first All-Great Lakes Region honor in a career-best time of 23:01.6. In the final 500 meters of her race, Laughner beat out two girls from Hope (Mich.) College, the team that had been ranked first in the Great Lakes Region all season.
BW will conclude its season on Saturday, Nov. 17, at the 2018 NCAA Championships, hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh at the Lake Breeze Golf Course in Winneconne, Wisconsin.
"We've got a really talented team and if we can race like we did this week, I think we can do some damage at the national meet," Eby said. "That's the exciting part. If we ran like this week, we can get going and surprise some people next week but we have to enjoy this moment first."
