Steele Paces Leopards At West Regionals
The University of La Verne women’s cross country placed 14th with 433 points at the NCAA III West Region Championships at McIver State Park in Portland, Ore., on Saturday.
The women's team finished 14th of 16 teams, beating Cal Tech and Chapman for the first time this year. Sophomore Jackie Steele lead the lady leos finishing 77th with a time of 24:39 for her fastest time of the year at the 6k distance. At the mile mark, Steele along with fellow sophomores Amanda Seibert and Mallorie Munoz were in a pack, and came through in 6:21.
Steele and Seibert began to break away from the pack and up the gradual hill, came through mile 2 13:10. Between miles 2 and 3, Seibert opened up a slight gap on Steele, but the 2 were able to finish strong coming within 2 seconds of each other, as Seibert crossed the line in 24:41. Munoz followed shortly after in 97th place in 25:58, running 1 second faster than her time at the SCIAC championships.
Fellow teammates Brittany Lokar and Amanda Santos rounded out the top 5, working together throughout the race. Lokar and Santos finished in 111th (28:30) and 112th (28:36) respectively.
Willamette won the team title after collecting 43 points and having three of their runners come in the top ten. Puget Sound and Colorado College were second and third with 86 and 121 points, respectively. Willamette’s Sarah Zerzan won the individual competition and Maddie Coffman placed second.
