AU Women Harriers Finish 13th, Iler is 48th at NCAA Division II National Meet
November 20, 2004

By Paul Carmany, AU Sports Information

Both Nate Iler (Bucyrus, OH/Colonel Crawford) and the Ashland University women’s cross country team had provided many pleasant surprises with their success thus far this season. In the year’s final race, Saturday’s NCAA Division II national cross country meet at the University of Southern Indiana, though, both Iler and the women’s team performed almost exactly according to pre-meet projections. Iler finished 48th overall in the men’s race while the Eagle women were 13th out of 24 teams.

Running a conservative pace at the start due to the hilly terrain awaiting him at the end of the 10K course, Iler, a senior, was well back in the pack for much of the afternoon. He caught and passed a number of runners in the race’s latter stages to end up finishing 48th out of 184 runners.

Iler’s time of 33:41 was just over two minutes behind individual champion Nicodemus Naimadu of Abilene Christian. Naimadu came in at 31:38.1, just edging out Western State’s top runner, Oliver Bodor. Bodor helped Western State capture the team title with 39 points.

In the afternoon’s second race, the AU women also started out at a controlled pace and looked to pick off runners on the hills. Junior Erin Stauffer (Ashland, OH) was the most successful with this strategy, finishing 52nd out of 188 runners in a time of 23:21 over the 6K distance. Freshman Kristin Ricketts (Lancaster, OH) continued her late-season surge by finishing 70th in 23:49. Miranda Forgac (Lakewood, OH/St. Joseph Academy) (84th place, 24:05), Colleen Wurzer (Rochester, NY/Greece Athena) (109th, 24:23) and Jessica Fleming (Massillon, OH/Jackson) (120th, 24:31) rounded out the top five for Ashland. Lisa Nell (Ashland, OH) (138th, 25:02) and Mara Albright (Norwalk, OH/Western Reserve) (141st, 25:05) also aided the Eagle effort.

Ashland scored 346 points to place 13th in the team standings. Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) rivals Grand Valley State and Northern Michigan were fourth and seventh, respectively. All of them chased Adams State, who ran away with its second straight national title and 13th overall crown with 31 points. The individual champion was Chelsea Smith of BYU-Hawaii in a time of 21:33.