It was a rainy and cloudy afternoon this past Friday at the Hillsboro Country Club for the Greenville Classic, and the Blackburn College Women’s Cross Country team ran their best race of the year. Blackburn raced five athletes among the sixty-four competitors from eight schools in a 5k (3.12 mile) race. Heartland Community College came in first place with a score of 22. Host, Greenville, came in second place with a score of 47, followed by Jefferson College with a score of 99. 

Three of the five Blackburn runners ran the fastest 5k race of their college careers. Team captain and Junior, Olivia Leemon, was the top finisher for Blackburn for the fifth consecutive race, finishing the 5k course with a PR of 23:56 (7:42 mile pace). Freshman Kailynn Kreup has established herself as Blackburn’s #2 runner with a strong race of her own (28:36). Not far behind, Freshman Gracie Jent shaved over a minute off for her college PR (28:51). Senior Ashanti Jones came in fourth with the time of 33:22. Freshman Ella Wilson rounded the scoring off for the Beavers with her own college PR of 40:56, cutting off three minutes of her time.  

The Women’s Cross Country season has one last meet that concludes on October 28 in Litchfield, Illinois, when they will compete in the SLIAC Conference Championships.