Annika Esvelt of Seattle Pacific finishes fourth at NCAA D2 title race in soggy Sacramento...
SACRAMENTO--Seattle Pacific's Annika Esvelt's (Paul Merca photo) racing mindset has been to stick her nose in with the leaders and see how fast and how far she can go with them.
The Falcon senior, who was a four-time All American on the track, but had never competed at the NCAA cross country championships, trusted herself all the way to a fourth place finish at the NCAA Division II men's and women's cross country championships on a cool and cloudy day at the Arcade Creek Cross Country Course at the Haggin Oaks Golf Course Saturday morning.
Esvelt traversed the 6k course in the final race of the day, running 20:35, six seconds away from winner Lauren Kiley of Grand Valley State, and four seconds behind GNAC nemesis and conference champion Kendall Kramer of Alaska Fairbanks.
"It was so much fun – it was muddy, extremely muddy. But it was just really fun," Esvelt said.
This was Seattle Pacific's first top-10 finish since 2009 when Falcons Hall of Famer Jessica Pixler won the third of her three consecutive championships. Since then, the highest-placing SPU runner was Dania Holmberg, who was 21st in 2019 on this same Arcade Creek course.
"That was without a doubt the best cross country race of her career," Falcons assistant coach / distance coach Eric Hansen said. ""We did a complete overhaul of our approach for this race coming out of Regionals, and she ran so smart today and so in control. She looked so good and in control the whole time."
Esvelt was in 41st place at the 1-kilometer, but was all the way up to 12 by 2K. She then moved into the top four and was as high as second heading into the final 1.2 kilometers.
Western Washington, which qualified as a team for the national championship race, finished eleventh, led by a repeat All-American performance by junior Ashley Reeck, who finished 33rd in 21:23.
Reeck was followed by Sophie Wright in 89th in 22:04, with Ila Davis behind in 95th in 22:08.
Danielle McLain finished 113th in 22:18, and Ella Edens rounded out the scorers for the Vikings in 114th in the same time.
The Vikings finished with a 1-5 split of 55 seconds.
Adams State won the women's team title, scoring 61 points, while placing all five of its scoring runners inside the top 20.
For the second year in a row, Central Washington’s Johan Correa was the GNAC’s top finisher, earning All-America status by taking 36th place among a field of 262 runners who started the race. Correa, who finished 17th at his first NCAA championships in 2023, clocked a time of 30:29 on the soggy course. Teammate Ramon Rodriguez, the 2024 GNAC Newcomer of the Year, also represented the Wildcats on Saturday with a time of 31:07 to finish in 77th place.
Western Washington finished in 13th place among the field of 34 teams competing, totaling 379 points to improve upon last year’s 16th-place national finish. It was the Vikings’ highest team finish at the national meet since placing 13th at the 2015 championships.
GNAC champion Jeret Gillingham was the top finisher for the Vikings, crossing the line with a time of 30:42 to take 48th place. Jared Alderfer followed in 75th place with a time of 31:05, and Kevin McDermott also finished in the top-100 with a time of 31:19 to place 95th. The other Vikings who scored on Saturday were George Karamitsos, in 110th place with a time of 31:27, and GNAC Freshman of the Year Jonah Billings, in 119th place with a time of 31:30.
The Vikings finished with a 1-5 split of 48 seconds.
Colorado School of Mines won yet another national title, in a close 63-66 battle with number one Wingate.
NOTE: The USTFCCCA, NCAA, and the sports information offices of Seattle Pacific, Western Washington, and Central Washington contributed to this report.
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