The Ithaca College women’s cross-country team and men’s cross-country team member senior Sean Phillips competed at the NCAA Championship on Nov. 19 in Louisville, Kentucky. The women’s team finished in 11th place with 384 points. Phillips crossed the finish in 148th place.
The women’s team earned an at-large bid to the championship after placing fourth at the regional championship. The last time the women’s team made NCAAs as a team was in 2014 when they placed 31st, and the year before when they placed 23rd.
Junior Taryn Cordani was the only runner to finish in the top 40. Her time of 20:54.8 put her in 11th place, just 0.4 seconds behind the 10th place runner. Junior Denise Ibarra finished just in the top 50, placing 48th. She ran a time of 21:34.8, averaging 5:47.1 per mile. Both Cordani and Ibarra competed in the NCAA Championship in 2015.
Freshman Annika Morrison finished the 6K in 22:07.6, a 15 second drop in time from her old record. Sophomore Emilie Mertz came in 181st place with a time of 22:29.9. The last finisher for the Bombers, junior Sierra Grazia, finished in 196th place, only six seconds behind Mertz.
A first-timer at the NCAA Championships, Phillips ran a time of 25:42.9. Phillips ran his 8K at an average pace of 5:10.4 per mile. Phillips was the only Bomber in the men’s race, similar to Sawyer Hitchcock ’16, who represented the South Hill squad alone in both 2014 and 2015.
This race concluded the season for both the men’s and women’s teams.
