CMS Women's Cross Country Wins NCAA West Regional Championship

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Meredith Bloss, Natalie Bitetti and Emily Clarke finished 2-3-4 and Riley Harmon finished sixth as the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's cross country team ran away with the NCAA West Regional championship on Saturday morning at the Pomona-Pitzer Cross Country Course.

Angie Gushue also scored for CMS in 13th place, as the Athenas finished with 27 points, well ahead of second-place Pomona-Pitzer with 105. The win gives CMS an automatic qualification to next weekend's NCAA Division III Championships, marking the 13th straight team qualification for the Athenas, dating back to 2008 (with a one-year gap a year ago due to the pandemic). 

Bloss finished second with a time of 21:54.4, finishing six seconds off the winning time set by Genevieve DiBari of Pomona-Pitzer. Bitetti was third in 22:01.4, and Clarke came in fourth place with a time of 22:06.6. 

Harmon was the fourth Athena to cross the finish line, clocking a time of 22;16.4 to come in sixth place, and Angie Gushue finished off the team victory as the fifth finisher, coming in 13th place with a time of 22:39.1. 

All seven Athenas who entered finished in the top 17, as Sophie Gitlin came in 16th place in 22:48.0, followed closely by Laura Zimmer in 17th in 22:50.6. All seven earned All-West Region honors, which is given to the top 35 finishers, out of the 150 who entered. 

Colorado College finished third with 132 points, while UC Santa Cruz was fourth and George Fox was fifth. Redlands (seventh) and Caltech (eighth) represented the SCIAC in the top 10. 

CMS will head to the NCAA Division III Championships next weekend, where it will compete in Louisville, Kentucky. The Athenas come in ranked No. 2 in the country behind only Johns Hopkins, and they will be trying to win the first national title in program history.