Nov. 25, 2019
We had a great finish to our season in Point Lookout, Missouri on Saturday, November 16. We won NCCAA Nationals! As Dr. White always says, we “dominated in the name of Jesus”. Six out of our seven runners were NCCAA All-Americans. Alayna placed second, I placed third, Bethany Sholl placed fourth, Remington Hobson placed fifth, Grace Norman placed sixth, and Hannah Rhem placed 22nd. The course was the hilliest course that we’ve run on this year, so it definitely was a tough mental and physical race.
Instead of a typical NCCAA banquet, we attended a dinner theatre at the Dolly Parton Stampede in Branson, Missouri. It was a great time with some great food! We’re glad that we were able to end the season on a high note and take home a win.
Now we’re going to start working towards going to finally meet our goal of qualifying for NCAA nationals. We’ll have a more experienced team, and we’ll keep getting better!
Nov. 13, 2019
This past weekend we competed at NCAA Division II Regionals in Evansville, Indiana. Unfortunately, it didn’t go as well as we had hoped. If I had to describe how we raced as a team, I would say just ok. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad. I couldn’t help but think of the AT&T commercials where they say “just ok is not ok,” and that was true this weekend. Our region is the best in the nation and an “ok” race just didn’t cut it. They ended up taking eight teams from our region to nationals, so the opportunity was there, but we finished 10th (27 points off of eighth). However, we gave it everything we had on that day so there wasn’t much else to be done.
Now enough with all the depressing stuff. Bethany Sholl and Olivia Kundo still had great races! They finished in 22:28 and 22:30 respectively. We were all super happy for Olivia. She hasn’t really raced in a few years due to injury, and this season she overcame a lot of the difficulties of getting back into racing shape. At the beginning of the season, she wasn’t racing in the Top 10, but in this last race, she finished fourth for our team! That’s pretty amazing and takes a lot of mental toughness, so we’re super proud of her and all her hard work.
This Saturday, we will be competing in Point Lookout, Missouri at NCCAA Nationals. We’re hoping to end the season with a win and we have a great opportunity to do so.
Looking to the next upcoming months, we’re going to let the disappointment of not making it to NCAA II Nationals fuel our determination to put in more work and get better for next season.
Nov. 6, 2019
This week I asked our two seniors to share a little bit about their time on the Cedarville Women’s Cross Country team. We’re so grateful for Olivia and Grace and all of the leadership and talent they bring to our team!
Olivia Kundo:
It's hard to believe that senior year is already in full swing. It feels like just yesterday I was coming to Cedarville as a freshman and beginning my collegiate running career. It has been such a blessing being a part of this team for the past few years. I have had many ups and downs throughout the seasons but I know that God has taught me a great deal through both the highs and lows of my running career. Being a part of the cross country team at Cedarville has been a unique experience for me because of the amazing teammates I have been given. It is such a cool experience to be able to run with a group of girls who are seeking to run well and be competitive with the main purpose of glorifying God. These teammates have pushed me both physically and spiritually throughout the years and have had such an impact on my life. I am looking forward to these last few cross country meets of my final season and I am so thankful for the experiences I have had.
Grace Norman:
My name is Grace Norman and I am a senior on the Women’s Cross Country team. This is only my second season running cross country but it has been one to remember! Looking back over my career here at Cedarville, the cross country team has always been one of my favorites. The incredibly supportive atmosphere among the team is so powerful. This season has definitely been one of my strongest seasons yet. It started out a bit rocky and I honestly wasn’t sure if running in the Top 10 was even possible. However, as time went on, I kept trusting the process and Coach Bo and putting in the needed hard work, thus I’ve been able to run with the Top 5 ladies. The season isn’t over yet and I’m excited to represent the Lady Yellow Jackets at regionals this Saturday!
Oct. 30, 2019
The season seems to be flying by! We just ran the G-MAC meet this past Saturday and did really well. Our conference is very good with four teams who have been ranked nationally this season. We ended up placing third behind Hillsdale and Walsh, who both ran very well that day. We were excited to have tons of PR's this weekend and some new members joined the Top 7.
Alayna led the team placing 6th with a 21:09, I placed 14th with a 21:40, Remington Hobson finished right behind me with a 21:42, Grace Norman and Bethany Sholl both finished in 22:00 with Olivia Kundo right behind them with 22:02, and Maddy Spaulding finished 7th with a 22:33. We were proud of our performance, and now we intend to use these next two weeks to try to feel stronger and faster as we prepare for regionals.
To kind of give an idea of our situation, we are currently ranked 8th in our region. The top three teams in each regional meet automatically qualify to nationals. However, there are 10 at-large bids where they will choose the next 10 teams in the nation to run at nationals. Since we have arguably the most competitive region in the nation, we have a good chance of the NCAA choosing extra teams from our region to go to nationals. I believe that we are better than the rankings give us credit for, but it will be very close between all of the teams ranked 2-10.
As we look toward our goal for the regional, we would love to place fourth because that would basically secure a spot in the nationals. Fifth or sixth place would potentially get us there, but placing any worse than that would probably not cut it. It'll be the most intense and nerve wracking race of the season, but we're prepared to go out there and run our best for God's glory. At the end of the day, we want to seize the moment and finish the race with no regrets.
Oct. 16, 2019
Sorry I'm a little late with this blog post. It's mid-term week at the 'Ville, so I've been pretty busy. Not only do I have a bunch of exams this week like all the other college students out there, but we also had a meet in North Carolina on Friday evening and drove eight+ hours back to Cedarville right after the meet was over, so we got back at 4 a.m. Because of that, Saturday was not a day of studying for me, so I've been cramming the last few days. Let me just say, typing a paper at 1 a.m. in the morning is hard enough, but typing one in the back of a bumpy van packed with luggage and after a very exhausting race makes things just a little bit more difficult. But 'tis the life of a student-athlete!
Speaking of the meet, we killed it y'all! We got fifth out of 60-something teams, which I'd say is pretty good. When we got to the course the day before the race, we knew it'd be fast. It was basically all a gravel path that got (maybe) seven feet of elevation gain the entire race. It was basically a gravel track, so we were pumped! We ate some good pasta for dinner the night before to load up on the carbs, and we got some good sleep at the hotel so we'd be prepared for a great race.
We all had our race plans set, but once the gun went off all those plans flew out the window. We knew there would be a lot of people in our race, but little did we know that it would be as if the apocalypse had started and everyone was trampling each other trying to get to the grocery store for the last of the canned food. I was hurdling bodies that had fallen, and I was honestly just shoving people so I could at least run in a straight line. 550 runners trying to get on a pretty small gravel path was interesting to say the least. Because of all the people, it wasn't as fast as some of us had hoped, but we still ran well!
Alayna Ackley led the team in 12th overall with a huge cross country PR of 17:41! I finished 34th with a PR of 18:24, Bethany Sholl finished with an 18:40 PR, and Remington Hobson finished in 18:48. Then we had a pack of three Yellow Jackets just under the 19-minute barrier! Grace Norman, Hannah Rhem, and Amy Plank (18:54, 18:54, 18:55) had great races, and we were glad to see more people in the 18's!
While everyone ran really well, we gave Athlete of the Week this week to Hannah Rhem because this freshman has shown outstanding improvement! For those of you who don't know, last year she had never ran under 21-minutes for a 5K, and now she's running over two minutes faster than that, so we're super proud of her! One of our Top 5, Mary Miller, was out this week due to an injury that the trainers are still figuring out (we're hoping she'll be back!), but we're glad that this pack of ladies really stepped up and competed so well for the fifth spot!
As I said earlier, the team got fifth place overall, and we beat a lot of teams from different regions. So we're hoping that this will help us out a lot as we try to make our way to Nationals! Next race is the G-MAC on October 26 in Pepper Pike, Ohio.
Oct. 1, 2019
We had an awesome weekend of competition at the All-Ohio meet this past weekend! Given that it was our first 6K of the season and that it was HOT, we raced pretty well. The Top 9 on our team ran in the varsity race, and the rest ran in the open race and pulled together a win for the team in that race! The varsity race went out a lot slower than in years past, most likely due to the heat. However, our top three finishers had PR's (Alayna, Mary, and myself). Bethany and Remi also finished very close to their PR's. This is very encouraging because the heat really makes it tough to run fast for that long. Our goal going into the race was to get fourth place. We ended up placing fifth - missing fourth by three points. Due to our performance at the All-Ohio, we are FINALLY ranked in the region. As of today, we are ranked #7 in a very tough region (nine teams in our region are currently ranked in the nation). But I think that we will definitely improve on that in these next few races.
This week, we're still training hard in our workouts, but we are carefully listening to our bodies because the heat from the race makes it more difficult to recover. However, we're looking forward to the end of the week because we're taking a fun trip to King's Island! We're super excited...well, at least the people who like roller coasters are. With all the pain we put ourselves through in workouts and races, I say we deserve a little fun every now and then!
Our next races are Friday, October 11th. The Top 10 will be traveling to Charlotte, North Carolina, and the rest of the team will be racing in Wilmington, Ohio. The North Carolina race is especially important for the end of the season because we will be running against teams from other regions. If we beat those teams, it will help our chances of getting an at-large bid for the NCAA DII National Meet! So wish us luck!
Sept. 24, 2019
Hello again to everyone! This week, we gave out our team's Athlete of the Week award for the Friendship Invitational to Claire Smout for running really close to her PR and finishing in the Top 7. Congrats, Claire!
This past week was a great time of training for the team. The temperature was toasty for both workouts, but we got the job done! Because we didn't have a meet this weekend, we did some pretty tough workouts. The first workout was 4-5 mile repeats, and the second one was 5-6 1000 meter repeats on the course. This was our first 1K workout on the cross country course, so it was a tough one. However, I was super encouraged by how well our team did. This is the toughest workout we do all season, and most people were able to complete it and hit their pace goals. Then we ended the week with a nice and slow long run on Saturday. Now we look forward to the workouts this week to get ready for the All-Ohio this Saturday!
I'll also give you guys an update on what our team is doing when we aren't running. While we believe running is important, we try to keep our focus on growing in our spiritual walk with God and developing meaningful relationships with each other. We are going through the book of James with Kathy Freese this year for our Bible study, which has been great so far as Kathy has a lot of wisdom to share. We've also started meeting in small groups once a week to go over Bible study discussion questions, talk about life, and keep each other accountable in our quiet times with the Lord. We are also looking to do a team ministry at the beginning of October, so we can seek to impact the community in some way. We haven't decided what ministry we're doing yet, but I'll keep you updated! So far, it's been a great season of running and team unity! We hope it only continues to get better from here!
Thanks for reading!
Rachel
Sept. 16, 2019
Thanks for tuning in again this week! We had another great weekend of competition at the Friendship Invitational on our home course. Our team finished 2nd behind the University of Cincinnati, which is an NCAA Division I school. The racing conditions were pretty close to perfect with partly cloudy skies, temperature in the high 60’s, and solid dry ground. As a result, the times were much faster than they have been in the past few years.
Our Top 5 girls were all under 19 minutes, and we had many PR’s on the team! Top 5 finishers were Alayna Ackley (5th, 18:07 PR), myself (10th, 18:31 PR), Mary Miller (13th, 18:38 PR), Bethany Sholl (15th, 18:48), and Remington Hobson (17th, 18:54). We also had a new freshman, Claire Smout, who made her first appearance in the Top 7! She finished 6th on the team with a time of 19:28, followed by Amy Plank finishing 7th for the team with a 19:33. The competition for Top 7 is getting pretty tight because there were a lot of yellow jerseys between the 19:30's and 20:00. We love having this competition between teammates because we are constantly being pushed everyday in practice and in every race. This will help us immensely as we work towards our goals for the end of the season.
Another exciting thing that happened in our race on Saturday was the appearance of our very first alumni team! It was so cool to see how well they ran, and it was super fun to race again with former teammates. Alaina Spears finished 3rd overall in 17:55, Kayla Casaletto finished 8th in 18:27, and our assistant coach Katie Ruhlman finished 11th in 18:33. The alumni team was very encouraging and also pushed us a lot in our race! After the race, Kayla sent me an email with something that got me super pumped, so I thought I'd share it with you all. Back in 2016, Cedarville had one of the best women's cross country teams in school history, and that team made it to NCAA D II Nationals. Their Top 5's average time for the Friendship Invitational in 2016 was 18:35, and our team's average this year was 18:36!
Obviously we have a long season still ahead of us, but this is so encouraging to know that our team is performing very well right now! With this in mind, we don't want to settle. We are gonna keep striving for improvement all the way until the end. This week we don't have a race, so we'll be working hard in this week's workouts to make the most of it. Our next race will be All-Ohio on September 28 at our home course. This will be the first 6K of the season and the first 6K for many of our team members, so come out and support us!
Sept. 9, 2019
Hi everyone! I will be the blogger for this year. My name is Rachel Sweeney, and this will be my third season running on the women’s cross country team. I am super excited to see what the season holds for this group of ladies, and we’re excited to work hard to meet our goals.
We’ve had a great first few weeks of training! Because of the NCAA rules, our schedule did not allow us to have a camp week, but we still managed to integrate the freshmen into our team within a few short days. We’ve got a great group of new girls on our team who are fun, encouraging, talented runners, ready to work hard, and COMPETITIVE! This past spring, us captains were talking about what we wanted to improve on for the upcoming cross country season, and we mentioned that we’d love to have a more competitive culture on our team. So we’re thanking the Lord for this group of freshmen He’s brought to Cedarville because this group has helped influence our team so much already.
We really got to see just how much our team has changed in competitiveness and racing toughness this past Friday. We raced at Indiana Wesleyan in our first meet. It was a wonderful course because it was completely flat, and it was perfect weather! Our team raced so well! We placed first in the meet with our Top 5 in the Top 20 finishers. We had spectacular performances by Mary Miller (FRESHMAN!), who PR’d by over a minute (18:39), Remington Hobson (18:40) and Bethany Sholl (18:43), who both PR’d as well! They had a strong pack for the whole race, which was great to see. Alayna Ackley led the Lady Jackets team with an 18:34 finish.
We also had Indiana natives and former Cedarville cross country runners Kayla Casaletto and Grace Flint join to cheer us on at the meet! They were very encouraging and Kayla mentioned that she has never seen in the history of our team, a race where we executed pack running as well as we did on Friday. This was a very encouraging race to start the season, and we hope to only improve from here!
Now we look ahead to this week of training to get ready for the Friendship Invitational this Saturday at 10:15 a.m. Come out to our home course to cheer us on!
Rachel Sweeney is a junior from Xenia, Ohio. She is in her third year with the Lady Jackets and is a Dean's List student as a pharmaceutical sciences major.
