Saturday’s ‘Pack the House’ event features several personal bests.
By Chantal Guerrero
Berry’s women’s cross country team finished third out of 28 schools Saturday at the Berry Invitational in Clara Bowl, an 6K event that drew 179 runners.
Winning the event among Division II, Division III and NAIA schools was Emory University. Young Harris finished second and Berry third. Georgia State took first among Division I schools by placing six of the Top 10 times for that division.
The top runners for event host Berry were junior Danielle Ferro at 22:57.8, which was second-best in the division; freshman Ellie Sanders at 24:26.8 (17th) and sophomore Alainna Chretien at 24:33.6 (18th).
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Freshman Ellie Sanders and sophomore Alainna
Chretien in the early stages of the 6K Berry
Invitational. They would finish 17th and 18th,
respectively, in the field of Division II, Division III
and NAIA schools. Photo by Chantal Guerrero.
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Leading the Lady Vikings was Ferro, whose 22:57.8 was a personal record by one second and the fourth-best time overall.
“I really wanted to try and start off faster, so that I could get a good start to the race and maintain it as much as I could,” said Ferro, the Southern Athletic Association runner of the week earlier this month.
Ferro said the personal best gives her something to build on going forward.
“Something that coach [Paul Deaton] said is that you can’t change what you have already run, you can’t change what is ahead,” she said. “You can only run in the present.”
Also setting a personal record was Chretien, who said she has struggled with an iron deficiency this season. The Berry Invitational was her first 6K competition of the season.
“Last year’s PR was in the 27s,” she said, surprised at her day. “I just ran in the 24s, so it is kind of a big PR and a big first race. I was definitely surprised. I knew I would feel and run better, but I was not expecting to do as well as I did.”
Going forward, Chretien said she hopes to break the 24-minute barrier.
Nine of Berry’s 13 runners are freshmen, so Deaton said his goal for the team is to continue to build and develop team chemistry and healthy training routines that will enable good results in the conference meet coming up at the end of the month.
“Our goal is to be competitive by our conference meet,” he said. “We would like to (finish in the) top half, but we still have some work to do.”
This season the team has faced injury and sickness, complicating routines and training regimens.
“It’s going to take a couple more weeks before we get everyone on the same page,” Deaton said. “My expectations were optimistic that we would do better (than we have), but I also knew that it was going to take some patience to get to our best case results.”
The Vikings return to action Saturday, Oct. 31, in the Southern Athletic Association championships in Danville, Ky.