The Rowan women’s cross country team ran at the Mike Woods Invitational in Genesco, New York over the weekend on Saturday, Oct. 1, and finished eighth overall out of 20 teams.

Head Coach Derick “Ringo” Adamson thought the team finished a little below expectations but was still satisfied with the performance.

“I thought they did well,” Ringo said. “Before the race started I looked at who was running and I said that we should probably finish seventh, but we finished eighth. I feel like they could have done better.”

Ringo mentioned how he thinks they could have executed better while running.

“They started off too conservatively,” Ringo said. “In a race like that with so many people, you have to start off out front and stay in front of everyone else. We started off in the back during the first mile and tried to make up for it throughout the race. You could see that at the 2K and the 4K markers they were slowly moving up, but since it is only a 6K race you eventually run out of real estate.”

Sophomore Anna Sasse was the Prof’s top finisher of the day finishing in 37th place with a time of 23:54.8. Sasse, who has had a decent season so far, was not happy with her performance.

“I was definitely disappointed in my performance,” Sasse said. “I feel like I could have done a lot better.”

While this wasn’t the ideal performance for Sasse, she does see her improvement in this race versus last season.

“I remember last year when I got the same time in the same race,” Sasse said. “I finished the race but when I got to the finish line, I was basically falling over. This year I crossed the finish line standing and feeling fine.”

Despite the fact Sasse might not have been happy with the outcome, Ringo had a different opinion.

“I saw this performance coming from her,” Ringo said. “She is that type of runner who puts in the work and you can see it paying off. She will always be right there at the end with a chance to be one of the top finishers.”

Looking forward to their next meet, Ringo is excited to have the event hosted by Rowan. He also feels like there is a lot of pressure when it comes to running at your own field.

“This is the best way I can put it,” Ringo said. “If you are in your own house, you do not want to embarrass your family. They know the pressure they are facing and the number of eyes that are going to be on them during the race.”

Ringo is confident as they get closer to the meet but feels like they need one more person to step up before the team runs again.

“We have Anna Sasse, Abbey Churchill, Gabby Pagano, and Cammy Wright who are our four that can go faster,” Ringo said. “We just need one more person to finish closer with them so we can have a really good top five. I am not worried about it, there are five runners competing for that spot right now.”

Ringo and the Profs will be looking for someone to step up as they will host the next meet on their home turf on Saturday, Oct. 15, at the Border Battle meet in Logan Township.

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