BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Lehigh women’s cross country wrapped up their season at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional on Friday afternoon. The Mountain Hawks got the advantage of racing on their home turf for the event, which resulted in the team 12th out of 27 competing schools in the 6k race.
Lehigh’s top finisher was sophomore Lucy Afanasewicz, who crossed the finish line with a time of 21:17.7 to place 58th overall at the event. Her finish at the NCAA Regional marked the third race that Afanasewicz has placed first for her team this season put her in top ten finishes all-time on the Goodman Campus cross country course.
“Lucy is one of the key examples of some women that were able to rebound from the Patriot League meet,” said head coach Debbie Utesch. “We went out and tried to shake things early and didn’t quite hold on [at the PLCs]. Just being at home and feeling more comfortable, we had some women really be resilient today.”
In addition to Afanasewicz, seniors Christina Yakaboski and Lindsay MacLellan also put up historic performances for Lehigh. Their finishes of 21:26.6 and 21:27.6 catapulted them into Lehigh’s top ten finishes all-time on their own course.
“Just phenomenal,” said Utesch. “[Breaking into the record books] really highlights the effort that those women were able to put forth today.”
Other finishers for the Mountain Hawks in today’s 6k race included Maddison Hayes (80th, 21:35.9), Savanah Beavers (83rd, 21:37.0), Abigail Tenreiro (140thh, 22:37.4) and Grace Kolbe (145th, 22:41.8).
The Mountain Hawks placed 12th overall in the race, scoring 350 points to do so. Utesch was very pleased with the result, as a main goal of the team headed into Friday’s competition was to place within the top 15.
“We talked about needing to have about 350 points to be in the top 15… Since we got knocked out of the regional rankings after the PLC, our goal was to get back in there,” said Utesch. “We scored exactly 350 points today, and that put us in 12th position and actually really close to some of our Patriot League competitors, so we were pretty happy with how we were able to wrap that up.”
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