LSC Championship Results
WT Results
COMMERCE, Texas. – The West Texas A&M women's cross country team finished third at the Lone Star Conference Cross Country Championships hosted by Texas A&M-Commerce as freshman Nikolina Hrelec won her first career individual title. Hrelec proved to be too much for the rest of the Lone Star Conference as she ran away from the field in the final 2,000-meters giving WT its first individual champion since 2014 at Centennial Park on Saturday morning.
The Lady Buffs finished third with 86 points behind champions Midwestern State with 51 points and Eastern New Mexico with 58 points. Tarleton State was fifth followed by Western New Mexico, Angelo State, Texas A&M-Commerce, Texas A&M-Kingsville and UT Permian Basin.
"I am proud of this young group of ladies," WT women's head cross country coach Kimberly Dudley said. "Six out of the seven are freshman and they have a bright future ahead of them. There are plenty of things to continue to improve on but they are definitely headed in the right direction."
Hrelec ran the fifth-fastest time in school history covering the 6,000-meters in a time of 22:01.7 six seconds ahead of ENMU's Mercy Rotich. The Zagreb, Croatia native becomes the third Lady Buff to win an individual title joining Emma Love (2014) and Brenda Sindet (2012). Kelly McCaskill earned All-Conference honors finishing 14th running 23:30.7.
Junior Caitlyn Cecchini was the Lady Buffs third runner finishing 21st (23:50.8) followed by Kristen Elizalde in 23th (23:55.7 and Mallory Shehan in 27th (24:08.7) to round out the top five. Samantha Gonzalez and Briana Hernandez also ran well for WT finishing 39rd and 42nd respectively.
The Lady Buffs will now turn their preparations to the NCAA Division II South Central Region Championships on Saturday, Nov. 5 hosted by Metro State.
