The women’s cross country team placed fiftieth in the field of 65 in the “Live in Louisville” meet, but their times qualified them for the NCCAA National Championship.
The women who competed for Asbury were Carolina Trumpower, Katherine Stanley, Sarah Yost, Della Nevitt, Hannah Hopkins, Elise Terpstra, and Lucy Bryson.
Trumpower led the team with a time of 20:38.7 with a team spread of 2:35. This push was enough to give them the points they needed for nationals.
“Today, I felt like the girls’ team pushed through a busy week, and their perseverance paid off,” Trumpower said. “I’m so proud of us for making it to nationals, and I know we will continue to make each other proud throughout the rest of the season.”
The women had extra motivation to qualify for nationals this year as they had come up just short last year.
“Our team has been super motivated this year to qualify for nationals since we missed it by 2 points last year, so today was a reward that was two years in the making,” said sophomore Lucy Bryson.
This year’s event did present some new challenges from last year. Because Asbury transitioned to NCAA III, Asbury did not compete in the third tier, as usual. That tier was specifically for D3 teams this year, and since Asbury is in a probationary period, they were bumped up to the second tier. They were competing against some very competitive and deeper teams.
“Our team performance was awesome compared to the crowd we were faced with,” Bryson said. “I felt like today we all came together and worked hard for a bigger purpose than ourselves.”
The women are competing today at the Brescia Invite, and they will compete in the National Championship on November 13 in Joplin, Missouri.
