Freshmen Trio Lead The Koalas At Sand Shark Invite

The Columbia College Cross Country team traveled to Hardeeville, SC on Saturday to compete in the 13th Annual Sand Shark Invitational, hosted by USC-Beaufort. The women's race fielded 19 teams, 12 of which were NAIA schools. It was soggy and sloppy race conditions as a constant drizzle of rain plagued the entire morning.

 Leading the Koalas was freshman Esther Ekundayo, who ran a new lifetime personal best of 20:16, to finish in 36th place among 150 finishers. Just behind her was freshman Makayla Hollifield, who improved upon her new personal best from last race by 28 seconds, by running a 20:28 for 41st place. Closely following, was the 3rd Koala finisher, freshman Valeria Bogdanova, who also ran a new lifetime personal best of 20:45.

 The 4th Koala finisher was sophomore Hannah Mishkoff, who ran a new collegiate best time of 21:12, good for 67th place. Rounding out the top 5 Koala scorers was freshman Gabrielle Huggins, who just missed a new lifetime personal best by 1 second by running a 22:17.

 Twin freshmen, Victoria and Jessica Heiser-Whatley, were neck and neck the entire race and both ran new collegiate bests of 25:04 and 25:06 respectively. Just behind them was sophomore Shelby Winn with a new collegiate best of 25:25.

 In the team scoring, the Koalas finished 10th out of 19 scoring teams. The total team time was 1:45:01 which is a 3 minute and 22 second improvement from their race just 2 weeks ago at USC Upstate. All 8 Koala finishers recorded either a new personal best time or a new collegiate best time.

 The Koala's next, and last race of the season is the AAC Championship in Canton, GA on November 9th.