William Penn Returns to Action in Second Competition at Central

Pella–The Statesmen women’s cross country team made a return trek down the highway Friday as it faced off in the Central Dutch Open.

WPU took fifth place out of five programs with 136 points, while host Central won the team trophy with 19 points.

The Dutch also had the top harrier on the 6K course as Maddy Stevens was first out of 87 individuals in a time of 22:57.8.

Claire Rye (Fr., Plymouth, Iowa, Biology) paced the Statesmen in 18th at 24:43.9.

Emmalee Wells-Stout (Fr., Oskaloosa, Iowa, Business Management) was next in 50th at 27:13.5, while Briana Admire (Jr., Galesburg, Ill., Biology) crossed the line in a time of 27:35.8 to place 56th.

Audrey Etter (Fr., Remsen, Iowa, Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management), who was 70th (28:46.6), and Mallory Ostroski (Fr., Le Grand, Iowa, Kinesiology), who was 72nd (29:01.7), completed the William Penn scoring lineup.

Nathaly Peralta (Fr., Dallas, Texas, New Media) also ran for the navy and gold, finishing 82nd in 31:15.4.

“For the first time this season, we had all of our women racing this evening, which was a lot of fun,” Head Coach Caleb Drake said. “The ladies ran together well throughout the race, and it really helped them to have a positive approach. Despite the challenging course and warm weather, we still had some personal bests. We have a lot of anticipation heading into next week’s race on a much flatter course.”

Next Up: William Penn travels to Cedar Rapids next Saturday to compete in the Mount Mercy Seminole Stampede at 10:30 a.m.