COLFAX, WA – Damaris Kibiwot turned in her second stellar finish of the season and was one of two Warrior women to run a personal best at the Cougar Classic, hosted by Washington State in Colfax. The No. 16 LC State Women’s Cross Country team finished seventh overall with three in the top 50.
“I feel pretty good about today’s results,” coach Mike Collins said. “We started this season trying to back off early in order to build our intensity as we go, so we definitely knew going in that we were not going to perform today at the level we performed last year, so we’ve got to make sure that we are setting the expectations at the level that we should. Despite that, I thought we had a really nice day, especially Damaris.”
Kibiwot placed 17th in the field of more than 80 runners with a career-best 6k time of 22:26.0. She was one of only three non-NCAA Division I runners in the top 20.
The senior duo of Grace Tiegs and Camille Ussher finished 40th and 45th, respectively. Tiegs ran a time of 23:25.4 and Ussher crossed the line in 23:42.4.
Freshmen Kailee Lerew and Nuala Rollins rounded out the top five for LC State. Lerew placed 64th in the field (25:09.1) and Rollins was 66th (25:13.1). Sophomore Leila Flannery ran a PR time of 25:43.4 to place 74th and Lilly Gilbert was 76th (26:091.). Freshman Jackie Jepngetich was 81st (29:28.1).
“Our goal today with both teams was to go through the first 800-1000m at a pace that was well below what were used to doing in order to try to stay under control, and then to work our way back through the field,” Collins explained. “I think if you look at both the men’s and women’s races, you will see almost every single one of our runners did that, which is very exciting because as we get in to races with more of the teams from our conference we can get into that pattern and to that mentality of being a hunter.”
UP NEXT
LC State Cross Country is back in action at the Western Washington Invitational in Bellingham, Wash., on Sept. 26.
