Bellevue University's women's cross country team, under head coach Craig Christians, established a number of firsts in its second season of competition as a team. Among those firsts was a first individual meet medalist, a number of record-breaking times over five kilometers, and the program's first NAIA national qualifier.
The Bruins opened their season at the Bill Buxton Invite in Indianola, Iowa, where Lorena Ramirez became the Bruins' first individual invitational medalist with a fourth-place finish. She led the team to a fourth-place finish among eight scoring teams, easily the Bruins' best team finish to date.
The Bruins ventured to Iowa again for the Yellow Jacket Invite hosted by Graceland where they finished as runner-up to the hosts. The Bruins recorded four top-ten finishes with Ramirez (third), Alisiara Hobbs (fifth), Maiwut Dar (seventh), and Isabelle Gonzalez (10th). Dayana Montano-Salama rounded out a very solid effort from the scorers.
At the Wildcat Invite at Wayne State, Ramirez returned to the podium again with a sixth-place individual finish. The team finished in 5th of 6 teams in a meet dominated by NCAA Division II schools.
The Briar Cliff Invite was the next stop for the Bruins and history was made when not one but two Bruins went under 20 minutes for 5K, the first such occurrence in school history. Hobbs stood on the podium this time with an eighth-place finish in a school-record 19:51.4. Ramirez just missed the podium with her 11th-place finish in 19:54.3, the second Bruin to eclipse 20 minutes. Unfortunately, a few of the lead runners were directed off course and the coaches decided that compiling team results would not be fair to all involved.
At the team's final warmup before the conference meet, the Bruins traveled to Yankton, S.D., for the Mount Marty Invite finishing sixth out of nine teams. Ramirez again stood on the podium as the 14th collegiate finisher, lowering her personal best time to a school-record 19:36.2.
The North Star Athletic Association Championships, which also serves as the NAIA national qualifying meet, was held in Forest City, Iowa. A snowstorm earlier in the week had left a few inches of snow on the ground and runners were greeted by that and temperatures in the 20's and a stiff north wind on meet day. Ramirez overcame those conditions to finish in 10th place, becoming the school's first all-NSAA performer in cross country. By rule, the first four finishers not on a qualifying team advance to the national meet and when Dakota State and Dickinson State finished in a team tie, Lorena's ticket to the national meet was punched. As a team, the Bruins moved up one spot from last year's NSAA meet to finish fifth.
The NAIA national meet was held at the Ft. Vancouver National Historic Site in Vancouver, Wash., under sunny skies. Ramirez turned in her best effort of the season, finishing 128th among 340 entrants. She was the second-highest finisher among the NSAA entrants and was less than two seconds from her personal best.
The program made strides in 2019 meeting its goals of being more competitive as a team in invitational meets and qualifying an individual for the national meet. The team defeated 35 percent of the teams it faced, up from four percent in 2018. Twenty of the top 25 times in school history were accomplished, including four marks under the 20-minute barrier.
Christians of the 2019 Bruin Women's Cross Country Team
"I was really pleased with the competitive attitude we brought to the meets this year and it was fun to mix it up with some teams," said Christians. "Lorena had a breakout year and is now one of the top runners in the conference. I know she has set some high goals for herself. I hope that she inspires the rest of the team because the talent is certainly there to move us forward as a group. We had some injury issues along the way that held us back a bit, especially when we are lacking in depth, but the women were always on the line and ready to go when the starter's gun was fired. Every member of this team improved and with another year of experience behind us, we can only get better."
