RESULTS
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Senior
Parley Hannan of the nationally ranked No. 22 Ithaca College women's cross country team became the first student-athlete in school history to win a cross country national title as she clocked a time of 20:53.8 at E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park on Saturday afternoon. Hannan becomes the 30th student-athlete to win a national title and the 46th overall individual national champion at Ithaca College.
Hannan bested the field of 277 runners by a convincing 18 seconds as she ran an average mile split of 5:36.3 on a muddy course. Through the opening 1,000 meters of the race, Hannan was neck-and-neck with Geneseo's Genny Corcoran, but by the 3K checkpoint, Hannan extended her lead to three seconds. Over the next 1,000 meters, Hannan pulled away and added an additional 12 seconds to her lead before crossing the finish. Corcoran finished as the runner-up with a time of 21:11.8.
She is the 18th women's cross country runner to earn All-America status and the 26th overall All-American. Prior to her first place showing on Saturday, Ithaca's best individual finish came from Jannette Bonrouhi, who finished fifth in 1988.
"It was so fun to watch her race today," said head coach
Erin Dinan. "Parley looked so confident and her legs were just rolling! When she finished, she looked like she was ready to do it again. Parley had such an ease to running the race, not to say she didn't work hard, but she felt so comfortable and confident the entire time."
The Bombers also factored into the team standings as IC finished 26th overall with 609 points.
Senior
Maggie Nickerson was the next IC runner to cross the line in 147th overall (104th in scoring) with a time of 23:11.4, while classmate
Annie Morrison finished next in 182nd (132nd) in 23:25.3.
Junior
Lizz Eberhardt posted a time of 24:00.6 to finish 181st in scoring (235 overall) and senior
Sarah Rudge was 191st (246) with a time of 24:16.9.
Senior
Maria Matkoski and junior
Kelly Farrell also ran for IC on Saturday. Matkoski finished with a time of 24:25.1, while Farrell crossed in 24:31.0.
Johns Hopkins University won the team championship with 125 points, while Washington University-St. Louis was the runner-up.
