he Elizabethtown College men and women’s cross country teams competed at the NCAA Division III Mideast Regional meet on Saturday, Nov. 16. The meet was at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. The men’s team hoped to finish in the top 10, but placed 12th out of the 54 teams competing on Saturday.
Sophomore Zach Trama finished in 30th place overall, running his fastest 8k of the season and giving him an all-regional title. Trama ran a 25:35, which is roughly 5:10 per mile, and finished 50 positions faster than his regional performance the previous year. The men had two other runners finish in the top 60 including junior Dan Gresh with a time of 26:05 and senior Stephen Welsh with a time of 26:12. All seven runners on the men’s team were able to finish out their last meet of the season with season bests for the 8k.
Senior Traci Tempone finished in 14th place at the NCAA Division III Mideast Regional meet with a time of 21:52 for the 6k on Saturday, which qualified her to race at the NCAA Division III Women’s Cross Country Championships on Saturday, Nov. 23.
Following alumni Tiffany Kulp, who graduated in 2008, Tempone is now the second runner in Etown’s history to be awarded all-regional four times during her running career at Etown.
Senior Megan Tursi finished in 16th place on Saturday with a time of 21:53 and is now a three-time all-region runner. Tursi missed a season of cross country when she was abroad last year but is an occupational therapy major and plans to run during her fifth year. This could put her in the running to be the third four-time all-regional women’s runner at the College. Senior Amanda Kerno was labeled as an all-region runner finishing in 31st place with a time of 22:15. Junior Amelia Tearnan finished in 36th place, one spot short of all-regional. Tearnan ran a season best of 22:26.
The Sunday after Regionals, the women’s team received the good news that it will be joining Tempone at the NCAA Division III Championships in Hanover, Ind. Since Tempone finished in 14th place at Regionals, she automatically had a spot for Nationals, but since the team as a whole finished 5th, it needed a bid to be able to race at Nationals. This will be the women’s sixth trip to Nationals.
