Junior Jennifer Comastri earned All-America honors for the first time in her career to lead No. 21 University of Southern Indiana Women’s Cross Country to a 13th-place finish at the NCAA Division II Championships Saturday.
Comastri finished the six-kilometer race with a time of 20 minutes, 50.00 seconds, good enough for 23rd in the 261-competitor field. Comastri surged more than 50 spots from the beginning of the race as she was 87th through the first 800 meters and 52nd a mile into the competition.
Senior Hope Jones aided the Screaming Eagles with a 54th-place finish, concluding the 6k with a time of 21:12.10, while junior Dorianne Langlois was 128th with a time of 21:55.90. Freshman Presley Warren was 155th, while fellow classmate Mckenna Cavanaugh was 169th to round out the Eagles’ top five finishers.
Freshman Aubrey Swart was 194th, while senior Ashley Lawhorn rounded out the Eagles’ lineup with a 241st-place finish.
As a team, the Eagles finished the 34-team field with 448 points to edge No. 8 Lee University, a team that defeated the Eagles earlier in the year. USI also was the fourth-ranked team from the Midwest Region, after finishing sixth at the regional two weeks ago at Angel Mounds, and the top finisher from the Great Lakes Valley Conference as No. 17 Southwest Baptist University finished 20th.
Comastri was the third GLVC runner to cross the finish line Saturday and one of six GLVC women’s runners to earn All-America honors with a top-40 finish.
Adams State University won the team title with a score of 23 points, while NCAA II Midwest Region champion Grand Valley State University was second with 87 points. Adams State sophomore Stephanie Cotter won the individual title with a time of 19:15.50 as the Grizzlies had four of the top six finishers.
