Sports
Accurso Defends Regional Individual Crown, Women 15th, Men 14th
By: Erick Starkey
Posted on:
Senior Juli Accurso defended her Great Lakes Regional individual title at the event in Madison, Wisc., while she paced the women to finish tied for 15th and the men also finished 14th in the regional event.
Accurso beat the Ohio University record for a 6-kilometer event – which she previously set – with a time of 20:00, improving her own personal record of 20:07, which was her event-winning time for the same event in 2012. Her time was faster than the second place finisher by nine seconds.
Accurso is the only Bobcat woman to win the event once and now she has won it twice in a row. With this accolade, Accurso is the two-time defending Great Lakes individual winner and she is also the three-time defending MAC individual runner.
Sophomore Caroline Hildebrand finished in second for the 'Cats with a time of 22:04 to put her in the 76th overall position. Senior Melissa Thompson and sophomore Maureen Dean crossed the line next for Ohio as they finished with times of 22:24 and 23:06, respectively, to put them in 96th and 141st places overall. Rounding out the top five for the Bobcats was sophomore Kayla Scott with a time of 23:09 to finish 145 overall.
The women earned 459 total team points to put them in the 15th overall position out of the 33 teams that competed, along with Dayton who also recorded 459 points. The team's average time on the day was 22:09 for the 6-k event.
The men were led by sophomore Jacob Stephens as he recorded a time of 32:13 to put him in the 68th overall position. Junior Chase Robinson finished 81st overall with a time of 32:30. Senior Brandon O'Malley and sophomore Jarrod Genther finished within two seconds of each other with times of 32:45 and 32:47, respectively, finishing 88th and 91st overall. Sophomore Jake Gentile also put in a strong performance finishing in 103rd place with a time of 33:05.
The men had a team average of 32:40 on the 10-kilometer course. The team gathered 431 total teams points to put them in 14th position out of the 31 teams.