TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- Western Michigan's Makayla Perez sits on the brink of a trip to the NCAA Championships after finishing 20th overall at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional Cross Country Championships at Indiana State on Friday.
Perez finished just .5 seconds from an automatic qualifying time and will find out her fate on Saturday evening if she advances to the NCAA Championships. Perez, who finished fifth overall at the MAC Championship, ran a time of 20:22.5 to pace the Broncos. WMU finished 13th overall.
"Overall I think we took a big step forward as a program today," said interim head coach Kevin Cataldo. "This team didn't run regionals last year and hadn't finished in the top 15 in a few years. To come out here and get 13th in one of the toughest regions in the country is exciting."
"I thought Mak ran an excellent race and put herself in great position early. This region has so many great athletes and on any given day that order can be jumbled around. I know she was looking for more, but she has just reminded people that you can compete with the best in the country and Western Michigan. "
Kayla Schiera was WMU's second finisher, running a time of 21:20.5 to take 57th. She was followed by Annalise James in 64th, with a time of 21:34.3. Katelyn Spooner was WMU's fourth finisher with a time of 22:29.4. Freshman Lauren Sancrant (23:58.3) and junior Maggie Raab (24:03.4) rounded out the field for the Broncos.
"Unfortunately, Kayla was tripped up 1k into the race. We had hopes of her being All-Region as well, but that's not how it played out today. Annalise James had the best race of her career so far. She has done a great job of building on her previous performances and truly starting to believe in her abilities as an athlete, which is starting to make her a dangerous runner. Katleyn and Brooke were aggressive the entire race and I though Brooke made some excellent adjustments from MACs to now, which really helped us out and rounded out the top five."
"Overall, this is an inexperienced group at this level. They have really grown since the beginning of the season and have now set the bar for future teams."
