Rachel King places 10th at NCAA Midwest Regional Championships

Posted

AMES, Iowa – South Dakota State came away with top-15 team finishes in the NCAA Midwest Regional Cross Country Championships on Friday morning.

Individually, NCAA Championship hopeful Rachel King finished 10th on the women’s side while Kyle Burdick led the men’s team with a 16th-place performance. 

Men

The two-time defending Summit League champs hit the course at Iowa State and beat the other two Summit League schools in the region (13 North Dakota State and South Dakota) while also beating regionally-ranked Wichita State.

SDSU took 13th out of 28 teams with 383 points.

“I think we ran a decent race,” SDSU coach Rod DeHaven said. “I think it was a good race for Kyle and it was good for the rest of the younger guys to come out and race.”

Burdick, a junior, paced himself along the way, ending 16th with a personal-best 10K time of 29 minutes, 35.7 seconds and earning NCAA All-Region honors.

He beat his previous best by more than 1 1/2 minutes and now has the fastest time among all Jackrabbits that have competed in the Midwest Regional since 2008.

Sophomore Chase Cayo placed 45th with a personal-best time of 30:06.2. He beat his previous personal best 10k-time by 75.7 seconds.

Sophomore Lukas Nelson ran the first 10K of his collegiate career, taking 91st with a 30:41.8 clocking.

Sophomore Sam Ivanecky (115th, 31:05.5) and junior Cal Lawton (116th, 31:06.5) ended up finishing exactly one second from each other. Rounding out the Jackrabbits’ lineup was freshman Gabe Peters (128th, 31:17.3) and redshirt-freshman Ray Munsterman (156th, 31:56.5).

Iowa State (69 points) edged Oklahoma State (74) for the team title.

Illinois’ Jonathan Davis (29:06.2) was medalist and Oklahoma State’s Hassan Abdi (29:11.3) was runner-up.

Women

The Jackrabbits took 15th with 405 points.

“The women’s team did great, I’m proud of what they did,” DeHaven said. “Emily Berzonsky did exceptionally well and we’ll find out about if Rachel makes it to the championships (on Saturday).”

King, a junior, earned NCAA All-Region honors with her 10th-place finish in a time of 20:28.2 in the 6K.

The Summit League medalist will find out today at 3 p.m. whether she receives an at-large bid to compete in the NCAA Championships, to be contested Saturday, Nov. 18, in Louisville, Ky.

Berzonsky, a junior, placed 48th in 21:13.4.

Freshman Anna Donnay ran her best 6K of the season, beating her old time by seven seconds. She ended up 96th in 21:43.7.

Junior Renae Dykstra finished 116th with a 21:54.5 clocking. Sophomore Kendra Dykstra was 135th with a time of 22:05.7

Junior Mackenzie Schell and freshman Cailee Peterson finished 156th (22:19.0) and 161st (22:22.0) respectively.

Iowa State (90 points) topped Oklahoma State (103) for the team championship.

Defending national champion Karissa Schweizer, a senior from Mizzou, was the individual winner in 19:50.9. Kansas’ Sharon Lokedi (20:11.6) placed second.