The women's cross country team returned to action on Saturday afternoon at the Siena Heights Invitational. After taking a week off from competition, the Cardinals took advantage of a week to hone in on their training regime. The Cardinals swept the top two finishers as Gabby Porter took first and Abbey Bentz finished a second behind to take second.
Making her first appearance of the season, Porter was strong from the start and took advantage of ideal racing conditions. Porter set a 5k personal record with a time of 19:14 besting her previous PR by nearly :45 seconds. Abbey Bentz kept pace with Porter for the entire race and nearly missed a personal record. Bentz finished just a second behind Porter with a time of 19:15 which was about one second slower than her best 5k time as well.
Megan Espinoza continued her strong start to collegiate racing with a time of 22:37. This shaved over 25 seconds from her debut a couple weeks ago at Taylor University. Lydia Schroeder (22:42) and Elizabeth Trent (23:27 roundeded out scoring for the Cardinals respectively.
Siena Heights took home the top team finisher as they placed 4th-8th to record 30 points. Concordia posted a score of 47 followed by 56 from Rochester.
The Cardinals will take a week to resume training before hosting their own meet. The Cardinals will host the "Old School" Invite on Saturday, October 17th. The meet will take place on the campus of Concordia University and is scheduled to start at 10am.
