Sports
Accurso Completes Three-Peat At MAC Championship, Men Fourth, Women Fifth
By: Erick Starkey
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The men and women's teams competed in the Mid-American Conference Championship events Saturday hosted by Bowling Green. The men took home fourth overall place, while the women took fifth, led by now three-time individual MAC Champion, senior Juli Accurso.
Accurso finished with a time of 20:37.46 to take home the crown. This time beat her meet time in 2012 of 20:48.40. She was just about two seconds off of the meet record, which she set in 2011 with a time of 20:35.30.
Sophomores Krista Roehlig and Caroline Hildebrand finished next for the 'Cats with times of 22:03.93 and 22:18.29, respectively, putting them in 22nd and 29th places. Rounding out the top five for the Bobcats was senior Melissa Thompson and sophomore Kayla Scott who finished 33rd and 38th overall, respectively, with times of 22:26.54 and 22:44.54.
The women finished fifth overall as a team out of 12 teams who competed on the 6-kilometer course. The team averaged a time of 22:02.16 to finish with 120 team points.
For the men, sophomore Jacob Stephens led the charge with a time of 25:46.59 to put him in 19th place overall. Sophomore Kurt Steinmuller and senior Chase Robinson finished back to back in the 23rd and 24th places with time of 25:53.25 and 25:55.41, respectively.
Junior Brandon O'Malley and sophomore Jake Gentile also finished back-to-back with times of 26:00.88 and 26:01.50 to put them in 27th and 28th places, respectively. Senior Noah Hawkins finished right behind his teammates to place sixth on Ohio with a time of 26:02.13 for the 29th overall position. The top six runners for Ohio finished in the top 30 places overall. The only other team to do that was Eastern Michigan, the eventual champion.
The men averaged a time of 25:55.53 to earn 121 total team points, finishing one point above the fifth place team. On the 8-kilometer course, the Bobcats took home the fourth spot out of nine teams.
The Bobcats will compete in the NCAA Regional event in Madison, Wisc., next. The women will begin the day at 11 a.m. and the men are set to start at 12 p.m.