First-year Jillian Richardson led the Bates women's cross country team to its best finish at the NCAA Championships in program history. (d3photography.com)
With only three runners remaining from its NCAA team a year ago, the Bates women's cross country team finished an improbably great 2019 season at the NCAA Division III Championships on Saturday by placing 14th out of 32 teams, the team's best-ever national finish.
First-year Jillian Richardson (Auburn, Maine) led the Bobcats for the fifth time in six races this season, finishing 59th out of 280 runners in 22:29.6 over 6 kilometers. Richardson trailed only six other first-year runners, and was 1.1 seconds behind the 55th-place runner, Suffolk senior Emily Manfra. Richardson was less than 16 seconds outside of the top 40 individuals, who receive All-America honors.
Bates' five previous team berths to the NCAA Championships occurred in 1995 (placing 18th out of 21 teams), 1997 (15th/21), 2012 (19th/32), 2016 (19th/32) and 2018 (17th/32). The 2018 team included four now-graduated seniors: Sarah Rothmann, Wendy Memishian and its top two runners in Katie Barker and Ayden Eickhoff.
