BETHLEHEM, Pa. -- After the Lehigh Valley was beset by 8 inches of rain in the two days leading up to Friday's Paul Short Run, the Big Red women's cross country teams raced in rainy, wet and very muddy contitions on the normally super-fast Lehigh cross country course. Despite the conditions, the Cornell women produced very good competitive results, placing fourth in the nationally competitive Gold Championship Race.

The Cornell women were out well on the rain-soaked course and competed hard throughout, finishing in fourth with 198 points, behind only #6 Georgetown, #16 Virginia and a strong James Madison team and edging Heps rival Columbia by 7 points and perennial Canadian power Guelph by 9 points. Cornell also placed ahead of Brown (12th), Penn (15th) and Dartmouth (16th). Sophomore Kelsey Karys led the Cornell contingent for much of the race and in the end it was freshman Devin McMahon who crossed the line as the first Cornellian, closing very well yet again in the last mile. McMahon dipped under 21:00 for the 6K course, crossing the line in 20:59 for an impressive 19th out of nearly 370 runners, and produced the second best Cornell time ever run on the Lehigh course. Sophomore Katie Kellner had another good race to place 26th in 21:15 while Karys ran a 6K PR to place 37th in 21:21. Another pair of sophomores, Genna Hartung (56th, 21:35) and Cara Costich (60th, 21:39 for another course PR) closed out the scoring for the Big Red.

Although a slew of young runners led the Big Red charge, good Cornell women's teams have always been defined by strong running from upperclassmen and so far this season the 2010 team has been no different: junior Janel Parker improved one minute and forty-five seconds from last year to set a new PR of 21:47 for 67th and senior Kristin Sellers ran very well yet again to place 72nd in 21:52, another nice course personal best. Senior captain Maura Carroll had a solid performance and great effort to place 87th in 22:00 with junior Shelby Herman close behind in 90th in a course personal best of 22:01. Junior Christine Smith was 190th in 22:52 in the field of nearly 370 runners.

Earlier in the day, the Big Red placed second in the “Open” race (placing only behind the Guelph “B” team) with seven runners in the top 25. Sophomore Neesha Schnepf improved over a minute from 2009 as she placed sixth in a fine race, running 22:21. Freshman Dale Kinney had a very good race as well to place 10th in 22:36 while classmate Emmy Shearer was 13th in 22:42. Sophomore Kate Rosettie was 15th in 22:44, junior Meghan Brown was 16th in 22:46 and junior Emma Clarke was 17th in 22:54. Also running (in a field of 212 runners) for Cornell was freshman Kaytlin Fischer (25th, 23:07), freshman Julie Horwath (29th, 23:16), freshman Rachel Sorna (32nd, 23:22) and freshman Lauren Lapointe (44th, 23:39). 

Complete Women's Gold Race results are here:
http://www.paulshortxcrun.com/PaulShort/Results/2010_CW_Gold.html

Complete Women's Open Race results are here:
http://www.paulshortxcrun.com/PaulShort/Results/2010_CW_Open.html

Next up for the Cornell women is the Penn State National Invitational in State College, Pa., on Saturday, October 16th. The team will host the John Reif Memorial Run on Friday, October 22nd and then the Heps return to Van Cortlandt Park on Friday, October 29th.