by Kevin Buczek
SALISBURY, N.C.-The Barton College women's cross country team had four of its top five finishers post new collegiate 5k personal record's (PR) to take third place out of six teams in the 2012 Catawba College Invitational at Salisbury Community Park on Friday afternoon.
The Lady Bulldogs tied Winston-Salem State University for second place with 48 points but lost the tiebreaker to the Rams (better sixth runner time). The host Indians won the team title with 36 points.
Sophomore Lauren Andreola had her best collegiate finish by claiming second place out of 41 harriers. The Newport, N.C., product destroyed her old PR time by over two minutes and broke the 20-minute barrier for the first time by traversing the true cross country style course in 19:15. Andreola was just 17 seconds of the pace of the race champion.
Freshman Lauren Yoho and sophomore Andrea Roca were both awarded t-shirts after the competition for finishing in the top-12. Yoho also crossed the finish line inside 20 minutes with a speed of 19:38 to place sixth overall. Roca set a new PR of 20:13 to take 11th.
Barton had all five of its scoring runners place in the top-20 and upper half of the field. Sophomore Cimone Barbour just missed her PR by two seconds when she finished the race in 13th place with a time of 20:22. Senior Alexa Tovella was the fourth Lady Bulldog with a personal record time when she completed the endurance race in 16th at 20:38.
Senior Ashley Freeman improved her time by almost two minutes from last week's first race of the season by clocking in at 22:53. Junior Angel Pearsall made her collegiate cross country debut and concluded BC's competition on the women's side with a benchmark time of 24:21.
Junior Ericka Skinner – a two-time All-Southeast Region runner – did not compete for the Lady Bulldogs due to injury.
Barton will next compete in the Bulldog Stampede hosted by Wingate University on Saturday, Sept. 22.
