Women's Cross Country Paced by Jones & Halfhill at Northeast Regionals

Friday, November 11

Van Cortland Park, NY

11:00 AM

Army West Point

Northeast Regional Championships

Women's Cross Country Paced by Jones & Halfhill at Northeast Regionals

November 11, 2022 | Women's Cross Country

MEET 6
MEET	NCAA Northeast Regionals
RESULTS	RESULTS 13th of 37 teams
RACE DISTANCE	6K
LOCATION	Van Cortlandt Park - Bronx, NY

BRONX, NY - Army West Point women's cross country concluded its 2022 season with a 13th place finish at the NCAA Northeast Regional Meet, competing amongst 37 programs spanning from New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. Georgia Jones and Joanna Halfhill led the Black Knights, crossing the finish together in 54th and 55th place, respectively.

Army saw improvements from the same meet last season, after posting a 19th place finish in 2021. The Black Knights finished as the top Patriot League team at the meet and tabbed the fifth-highest finish among 16 New York schools.

Honored by the Patriot League earlier in the week for their academic achievements, Jones (named to All-Academic Team) and Halfhill (named Scholar-Athlete of the Year) finished with times of 21:42.6 and 21:42.7

Three other cadets landed in the top-100, with Melissa Jachim coming in with a time of 22:05.2 for an 86th-place finish. Laurynn Sisneros (91st, 22:09.2) and Claire Lewis (91st, 22:10.2) closely followed to round out the Black Knights' top-five finishers.

Army's scores were rounded out by Lily Nunnery (149th, 23:02.6) and Cora Nephew (167th, 23:19.9).

The Black Knights conclude a successful season for the program, finishing second at the Patriot League Championships and seeing three named to the All-Patriot League First Team in Georgia Jones, Joanna Halfhill and Charlotte Richman.

Coach's Corner
"Our women ran well today. We didn't perform above expectations but we certainly matched our ability and our fitness. We have struggled this year with consistency from our 3,4,5 runners and we have rarely closed out races in the last 1000m. But today, we got great effort and execution from our 3,4,5 and we finished well over the last part of the race and that led to a pretty good outcome for our team. Historically, we have not been very competitive at this meet. Our region is the largest of the 9 in the NCAA and there are a number of NCAA caliber teams in the meet. Today we had the best finish that we have had in the Northeast region since 2008. We were in 15^th place with 1 kilometer to go and in all of our previous meets, we struggled to the finish line but today 3 of our top 5 women passed people in that last kilometer and we moved from 15^th to 13^th. Much of that movement came from Melissa Jachim. She was our number 3 today in what is certainly the best race she has run this year. She has struggled with her race execution and after the conference meet, I think she made a commitment to herself to be in the race and to kick hard the last part of the race. She had a very determined look on her face early in the race and completely different in-race body language. It was obvious to me that she was dialed in to her responsibility. She passed 15 women in that last 1000 meters and came to the line running furiously. It was great to see her commit to the necessary effort and to be rewarded with a satisfying performance. Joanna Halfhill was another bright spot today. She ran with great poise after getting out pretty hard in the early part of the race. She is fearless and sometimes runs the risk of being too aggressive but her competitive mindset is pretty strong and she battled hard through the middle of the race and then held her position over the last half of the race. Last year, she didn't even make the roster for this meet so for her to be our number 2 and to finish in the top 55 is quite an accomplishment. Laurynn Sisneros and Claire Lewis also put together solid races to round out our top five today. Laurynn has discovered how to push herself and has made a habit out of being consistent. She puts herself in every race and isn't afraid to test her limits. She did a nice job for us all year and is someone that will surely make a big breakthrough on the track this winter and spring. Claire ran with great effort today and faded a little toward the end of the race but showed that she belonged in the field. She is just figuring out how to compete at this level and has a great mindset so the best is yet to come with her. Georgia Jones didn't have her best day today. She has been the spark for this team for the three years that she has been at the academy and sometimes we take for granted what she has done. She has one of the strongest competitive mindsets that I have been around in my 29 years of doing this. The race just didn't go well today. She still led our team and she put herself in the race early but she struggled to finish with the fury that we are all used to seeing from her. So while is stings to have it not go well, she is resilient and will bounce back pretty quickly. I told our team that we can't celebrate finishing 13^th of the 39 teams in the meet, but we certainly need to acknowledge the improvement that we made in our race execution and our commitment to compete at a higher level. Our weaknesses throughout the season were our ability to finish races and our consistency from our number 3,4,5 runners. Today, we eliminated those weaknesses and put together a solid race from top to bottom. It was a solid finish to the year and a great starting point for the indoor season." - Director of Track and Field Mike Smith