California Baptist University
NCAA Division II West Regional
History in the Making
11/7/2015 2:02:00 PM | Women's Cross Country, Cross Country, Cross Country & Track
MONMOUTH, Ore. — For the first time in California Baptist University history, the women's cross country team qualified for the NCAA Division II championship as a team, taking fourth at the West Regional meet Saturday morning.
"The women ran really tough today," head coach Ben Gall said. "I'm proud of how they stuck together and really relied on each other."
Big improvements have taken place as the Lancers finished eighth in the regional qualifier the previous year. CBU needed to finish in one of the top five spots to qualify for the national tournament and did just that with some outstanding individual performances, accumulating a team score of 203 points. Chico State won the West Regional Championship with a low of 89, having three of the top 15 runners.
"This is a tough region and it's very exciting for our program to advance to the national championships for the first time," Gall said.
Finishing 12th overall and first for the Lancers, Caroline Barkechir ran an impressive 21 minutes, 35.59 seconds time. The junior has shown consistent quality all throughout the season and made her mark at the regional qualifier, grabbing All-West Region honors with a top-25 placing.
As important and vital Barkechir's effort was, CBU didn't want to just send one individual onto the next scene, but make history and qualify as a team and showed its fighting spirit as the Lancers battled other regional runners for crucial points.
Berenice Cleyet-Merle came in 39th place and second for the Lancers with a time of 22:09.08. After Cleyet-Merle, a flurry of navy and gold followed with Katie Deimling (22:23.21), Claire Rainey (22:23.66), Alana Enabnit (22:24.18) and Emeline Delanis (22:29.28) as they finished 51st, 52nd, 53rd and 56th respectively.
Kim Rabenstein rounded off the Lancers fine performance, running a 22:43.46 time for 74th place.
The Lancers will prepare for the upcoming NCAA DII national tournament which will take place Nov. 21 in Joplin, Mo.
Players Mentioned
