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Womens harriers crowned champs, Haynes is Coach of the Year
Release Date:
Nov. 2, 2008
MONMOUTH, Ill. —
Buoyed by the return of their top seven runners from one year
ago – and one newcomer – the women’s cross country team won their
first Midwest Conference team title in school history Saturday and
earned coach Roger Haynes the MWC’s Coach of the Year honor.
Monmouth ended Grinnell’s reign of four
straight conference titles and their 55 points bested runnerup
Carroll University by 13 points. The Fighting Scots had a
school-record five runners named All-Midwest Conference. The top 20
runners receive all-conference recognition.
For the first time, the women ran a 6K
course in the conference championship. That didn’t bother sophomore
Mary Kate Beyer (East Peoria, Ill./East Peoria) who earned her
second all-conference award. Beyer led the Scots’ charge finishing
second with a school-record time of 22:03.73. Junior Katie Staab
(Batavia, Ill./Batavia) picked up her third all-league honor,
placing fifth in 23:28.38. Staab became Monmouth’s first three-time
all-conference woman since Carrie Knauer turned the trick from
1995-97.
First year runner, junior Taryn Tang
(East Moline, Ill./United Township) clocked a 24:25.69 to place 14th
just in front of classmate Amy Aghababian (St. Charles,
Ill./Burlington Central). Sophomore Whitney Didier (Dixon,
Ill./Dixon) joined the all-conference ranks, placing 19th in
24:35.33.
Junior Jayme Ayers and freshman Ashley
Szabo completed the scoring runners for the Scots, placing 34th and
35th, respectively. Bri Flynn placed 48th, Brooke Potendyk 60th and
Sara Ditzler was 80th.
Haynes was named the Women’s Coach of the
Year in a vote of the league’s coaches. The Scots had back-to-back
fifth place finishes the previous two years and hadn’t finished
higher than fourth since 1997.
The men’s team placed third for the
second consecutive year, behind league champion Grinnell and
runnerup St. Norbert.
Junior Clay Staley (Hanna City,
Ill./Illini Bluffs) picked up his third all-conference honor with an
11th place finish in 26:43.43. Sophomore Scott Sheller (Morton,
Ill./Morton) placed 13th in 26:47.02 to also garner all-conference
honors.
Brad Begyn led the Scots pack that just
missed all-league honors, placing 21st through 24th. Begyn’s time of
27:24.58 was 21st, followed by Jon Welty, Alan Rosiquez and Geoff
Bird. The foursome finished within eight second of one another. Matt
Peharda rounded out the scoring runners in 37th position with a time
of 28:22.53. Tim Bentz and Craig Maher placed 42nd and 48th.
The teams will take this weekend off
before competing in the NCAA Regional meet next Saturday in Rock
Island.
Men's Cross Country |
Women's Cross Country
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