Both Elizabethtown College cross country teams took the Landmark Conference title Saturday, Oct. 27. This is the fifth consecutive title for both teams.
The women’s team had a close call, only beating Moravian College by four points.
Sophomore Olivia Gerstenbacher ran a personal best of 23:01.42 and was the recipient of the All-Landmark First Team honors. She finished in second place, which senior Colleen Kernan following close behind in third. Sophomore Kaitlin Donahue tied her career best and came in fifth place with 23:24.58.
Etown’s coaching staff were named the Coaching Staff of the Year and this race was the 12th straight conference win for the women’s program overall.
First-year Melissa Fitzgibbon and Sophomore Emma Ager were the next Etown runners to finish after Donahue. Ager managed to finish the race with a new personal best of 24:13.26.
Moravian did better in the race times of their final runners than Etown, but Etown had three of the top five runners, which gave them the four-point lead.
The men’s team took the win by one point against Juniata College to win their title. Junior Samuel Gerstenbacher was the men’s top runner for the second consecutive year and was also named the Performer of the Year. The team finished with 44 points.
It was a tight race, but Gerstenbacher and a student from Moravian pulled out at the end, and Gersetenbacher came out on top just two seconds ahead of the competing runner.
Senior Tyler Alanksy came in fourth place with a time of 26:18.84. Junior Christopher Myers set a new personal record and finished in eighth place with a time of 26:37.85.
Junior Liam Coverdale and first-year Adam Wolfe broke the deal for this race, earning the team a victory. Coverdale finished in 12th place at 26:58.71, while Wolfe secured the 19th spot at 27:29.24, which almost allowed him to beat his personal best.
The Blue Jays will compete in the NCAA Mideast Regional Championships Saturday, Nov. 10 at DeSales University starting at 12 p.m. They will travel to Wisconsin for the NCAA DIII Championships Saturday, Nov. 17.
