By Laurean Love
Reporter
Women’s cross country competed against a tough field that featured eight regionally ranked teams and finished sixth overall on Friday in Toledo, Ohio, at the Toledo Inter-Regional Bubble Buster.
The Lady Bears had a total of 135 points, which earned them a sixth-place finish ahead of Ohio State with 152 points and Eastern Michigan with 204 points. South Central Region rival, Arkansas, took the team title with 36 points over West Virginia with 57 points, San Francisco with 101, Columbia with 106, and Toledo with 115.
“We didn’t have a bad day, but we didn’t have a great day either,” head coach Todd Harbour said in a press release. “We definitely got some valuable experience racing in a major Division I race. We came in ranked about sixth among these teams and that’s exactly where we finished.”
Over half of Baylor’s top runners had been resting in preparation for this meet the past two weeks.
Senior Cate Westenhover led the team to a 20th-place finish with a time of 13:56.8 for the 4,000-meter course at Ottawa Park. Westenhover had a 10-second improvement from the opening course at the Bear Twilight meet.
Freshman Rachel Johnson placed 22nd with a time of 13:59.5, which is a 14-second time improvement for her.
Senior Kristen Hanselka place 27th and had a time of 14:09.4. Freshmen Erin Hegarty and Bree Schrader rounded out the Baylor top five. Hegarty finished in 32nd with a time of 14:5.6 while Schrader came in 37th at 14:21.1.
Baylor men’s took the week off after competing the last three consecutive meets.
The men and women’s teams will both be back on the road Friday for the Adidas Notre Dame Invitational in Notre Dame, Ind. The 5,000-meter women’s course and the men’s five-mile course are scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. on the Notre Dame Golf Course.
