Mids Finish 16th at Paul Short Invitational :: Navy topped all of the Patriot League schools in the meet on Friday

Sept. 28, 2007

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Navy women's cross country runner Arwyn Becker (Sr./Avon, Colo.) boated the team's best time for the third-consecutive week to lead the Midshipmen to a 16th-place finish out of 47 teams at the Paul Short Invitational on the Goodman Campus Course in Bethlehem, Pa., on Friday afternoon.

Princeton, the 13th-ranked team in the nation, claimed the team title with a score of 45 points. West Virginia came in second with 118 points, followed by 23rd-ranked Texas Tech's 154 points, fifth-ranked Wisconsin's 157 points and Stony Brook's 185 points to round of the top-five teams.

Navy concluded the day with a team score of 523 points, 23 fewer than preseason Patriot League favorite Bucknell's 546 points for 18th place.

"Our main purposes coming into this meet were to run on the NCAA regional course and make determinations for our racing squad over the next two weeks," stated Navy head coach Karen Boyle. "We got off to a better start than our last meet despite a starting pack of around 300 runners. Considering it was an exam week, I thought we ran really well and was impressed that we finished better than any of the Patriot League teams running in the race."

Becker opened the race with a time of 5:40 over the first mile en route to a 22:02 clocking for 64th place, an average mile time of 5:55. The Navy senior finished 2:03 behind individual champion Sally Kipyego's 19:59 effort from Texas Tech.

Team captain Kyleigh Millhouse (Sr./Boiling Springs, Pa.) finished in 102nd place with a time of 22:32, soon followed by Maureen Dooley's (Jr./Durham, Conn.) 22:34 showing for 105th place. Lexa Gass (So./Crescent, Pa.) recorded the team's fourth-fastest time, 119th overall, with a time of 22:47 and Erica Ziel (So./Saginaw, Mich.) rounded out the scoring five with a 22:54 clocking, good for 133rd place.

The Midshipmen (3-0) will return to action on Friday, Oct. 12, when they travel up to West Point, N.Y., to take on Army in the annual Star Meet, starting at 4:45 p.m. Last season, the Mids defeated the Black Knights, 21-38, to capture the N-Star in Annapolis.