By: Chris Yingling | Co-Editor in Chief
The Taylor men's and women's cross country teams finished strong at the Crossroads League Championship in Huntington on Saturday.
Led by junior Matt Hall, the men's team took third in the nine-team field. Only No. 5 Indiana Wesleyan and No. 15 Marian placed higher than the Trojans. Taylor placed 12 competitors in the Top 50 among the 121 runners. Hall bolted out to a 25:13.3 time, his fastest in his three-year collegiate career. Hall's time was enough to earn him his first Crossroads League Championship title."It was one of those perfect days with perfect weather and I really enjoyed the course," Hall said. "We would've like to have performed a bit better to get above Marian, but we still had a lot of good performances."
Sophomore Stephen Cho placed 12th in the race with a time of 26:32.6. Behind Cho, freshman Micah Bragg, sophomore Jonathan Taylor and junior Tanner Dye rounded off Taylor's Top 5 with 20th, 22nd and 24th-places finishes, respectively.
Hall and Cho received All-Crossroads League honors for their accomplishments this year.
It was a different story for the women's team. Led by sophomore phenom Alex Berends, the Trojans defended their title by earning the Crossroads League Championship for the second year in a row.
Running for the seventh-best overall time in program history, Taylor combined for a mark of 94:52, just 40 seconds less than second-place No. 9 IWU. Berends won the race by a margin of 30 seconds for her second consecutive title with a time of 18:22.7.
"It was a really relaxed race for me," Berends said. "After the first couple miles, we spread out of the pack and I sort of split off from everybody. We competed like the IWU girls had targets on their backs."
Berends was followed by senior Anissa Richards with a 19:01.0 time and a seventh-place finish. Junior Hannah Schroder, freshman Michelle Franch, senior Jane Hawks and sophomore Andi Foster occupied ninth through 12th places. All six runners received All-Crossroads League honors along with head coach Quinn White.
Both teams earned the right to compete at the NAIA National Championships on Nov. 21 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Photograph provided by TU Sports Information Department
