DELAND, Fla. – Stetson women's cross country finished ninth in the Paul Short Run women's college brown 6K race. The squad was paced by sophomore Cheyenne Durda.

"We had some individuals perform well today," head coach Bryan Harmon said "When you look at where we want to be in four weeks, those two can help us in the way they did last year then that's definitely an encouraging sign. I thought we were good enough for third or four and we unfortunately finished ninth. We had some mishaps later in the race, because at the two-mile mark we were in sixth place. I think travel got to us a little bit, obviously leaving on a Tuesday night and staying at a hotel three-straight nights is not well, but that isn't an excuse, we should have performed better. I think the race itself, it's one of the biggest in the nation, and I think we got a little starry eyed when we got there. We saw all these people, tents and buses, and we don't see a lot of that in Florida. We see a lot of nine, 10, 15 team races not three races of 47 teams. So we learn, we've talked about it and that's what we're going to have to do. We addressed some things on the bus ride home directly after the race. We wanted to be better and we still weren't bad. That's the sign of a team that has potential, stability and places to go in the future. We know that if this is mediocre for us, when we put it together we're gonna be in a pretty good spot. That's going to be the takeway."

Durda posted a 21:45.1 for 22. Ten seconds later sophomore Madison Niederriter crossed the line in 30th place. Junior Sally Calhoun freshman Chloe Fernander and freshman Deanna Bottino rounded out the Stetson top five finishers, in that order.

"Sally ran a second personal best and Chloe ran for her first 6K," Harmon said about the team performances "The rest were kind of mixed; you'll never complain about a school record, and that's what Cheyenne did, but I thought she was capable of running faster. Madison ran a [Personal Record] by a second, still thought she was capable of running faster. Annabelle [Brink] ran a PR but I still thought she could be faster. I want to make sure to point out Eleanor [King] and Archike [Parker]. That was their first race coming back from injury; Archike ran at UNF but that race in trainers and it
was used more as a glorified workout. To have those two back and competing was encouraging to see."

SU women's cross country has one final meet before the ASUN Championship, the USF invitational on October 14 at The CLAW on South Florida's campus in Tampa, Florida.

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