Rice University
Pre-Nationals
Owls Ninth at Pre-Nationals
10/15/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country
Oct. 15, 2005
Terre Haute, Ind. -
Marissa Daniels finished 29th and Kate Gorry was 37th to lead the Rice women's cross country team to an impressive ninth-place finish at the Pre-Nationals meet Saturday in Terre Haute, Ind. The Owls beat five teams ranked in the national top-30, scoring 351 points. Stanford won the team title with 86 points.
Daniels, an NCAA qualifier as a freshman last year, covered the six-kilometer course in 20:57, with Gorry, the 2004 WAC champion, nine seconds behind her at 21:06. Butler's Vicky Mitchell was the individual champion in 20:02.
"Marissa and Kate had good runs today and we had a good pack behind them," said Rice head coach Jim Bevan. "To beat so many nationally-ranked teams puts our performance in perspective and it sets us up well as we look forward to the conference meet in two weeks."
Callie Wells ran very well as the Owls' third runner, taking 58th in 21:31. Anna Reeve was 112th in 22:10, and Sarah Yoder rounded out the Rice scorers in 115th at 22:12. Lea Garcia, 152nd in 22:35, and Laura Kelley, 196th in 23:16, also competed for the Owls.
"This was a very encouraging team effort," Bevan said. "We have been working on tightening up our pack and it worked better today."
The Owls return to action Oct. 29 in Orlando, Fla., at the Conference USA championships.
Players Mentioned
