It was a great start to her Trinity Western Spartans cross-country career as Sarah Inglis crossed the finish line in first place.
The Spartans cross-country team was competing at the University of Washington Sundodger Open on Saturday at Seattle's Lincoln Park.
Inglis finished the six-kilometre race in 21:12.82, which was seven seconds ahead of UBC's Maria Bernard.
"Mark (Bomba, TWU endurance coach) told me to take it kind of easy for the first couple of laps and then after four kilometres to go from there," Inglis said.
“So the first couple of laps I felt really good. I felt like I was just running along quite nicely and then it started to pick up and I just went along with the UBC girl and it worked out well. I managed to pull away and finish quite strong.”
Meanwhile, following closely behind Inglis was TWU’s Alison Jackson who finished fourth overall in a time of 21:33:38.
As a team, the Spartans women finished third overall out of 17 teams, trailing only UBC and SFU.
“I’m really happy with how our women’s team ran and I thought it was a really good start,” said Spartans coach Laurier Primeau. “With our focus being much more on team results this year compared to years past, I’m really encouraged with the way the girls worked together today and the closeness in which we finished as a group.”
Beyond Inglis and Jackson, it was the Spartans Fiona Benson, finishing 25th in 22:19.77, while Meg Harradine and Regan Yee ran step for step throughout the race, with Harradine finishing 70th in 23:21.16 and Yee crossing the line in 71st with a time of 23:21.37.
On the men’s side, Joel De Schiffart led the way for the Spartans in the eight kilometre race, finishing 20th in 25:26.58. De Schiffart was followed closely by Declan White who crossed the line 22nd overall in 25:30.56. Following De Schiffart and White was Mihai Prajea who finished 79th in 26:52.92, and Adam Marshall who finished 87th in 27:00.08.
“On the guys’ side, we were very precautionary today,” Primeau said.
“Our men are a little bit different than the women in the fact that we have more depth. We left two of our better runners, Chris Voth and Blair Johnston at home intentionally, but of those who ran, I was impressed. Even with Levi, who didn’t finish, I was really encouraged by his performance. With 300m to go he was sitting between Joel and Declan, who had outstanding finishes. He just succumbed to hydration issues and we had to pull him off.
“Overall, I’m delighted with how things went today and I’m looking forward to a good solid month of training before we compete again.”
The Spartans are back on the cross country trails Oct. 12 when they will compete in the Western Washington Classic Invitational in Bellingham, Wash.