FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Sparked by the return of a trio of runners, the Tulane women's cross country team placed 20th at the Chile Pepper Invitational Saturday. Julia Whitrock, Annette Glaz and Rebecca Coady each returned from injuries to be the first three Green Wave runners across the line. "Our expectation of being a stronger team with Julia Whitrock, Annette Glaz, Rebecca Coady back was validated today by their performance today," head coach Eric Peterson said. "They were able to place highly in a national competition and lead us as our top three runners." Redshirt sophomore Julia Whitrock paced the Wave with a time of 22:31, finished 56th, in her first race of the 2009 campaign. Whitrock had been sidelined by a leg injury. "Julia handled this race very well. She ran at an even pace and gradually kept moving through the field," commented Peterson. "She was faster than she was here last year, and that's impressive since she's only really been fully healthy for about the past 10 days."
ight behind Glaz was freshman Katherine Crabtree, one second back at 23:54, in 157th place. Bunched behind that duo was Johanna Gretschel, who posted a time of 24:06 to place 172nd.
Tulane's final runner was freshman Emmi Aguillard in 193th place with a time of 24:39. Freshman Maggie Gentry did not finish. "Overall, we had a solid effort from all of our top six runners today, in particular Annette. She ran only once last year, so for all intents and purposes, this is her first race and she gave a strong effort," Peterson continued. "It does a lot for our team when we run as a group, with our 3-4-5 right there together. If we can continue to improve on that, we can improve our results. What we're taking away from this is that we had good team running, and it's much more difficult to do that in a national meet like the Chile Pepper. Those three pulled that off pretty well." The Green Wave placed 20th of 34 Division I teams, with 554 points. Tulane finished behind regional opponent McNeese State, which placed 14th, but 110 points ahead of LSU. Texas Tech won the Chile Pepper as their top five - of the 267 runners in the event - combined for a score of 35. Tulane will have two weeks off before the Conference USA Championship on Halloween in Houston, Texas. Tulane Results
56. Julia Whitrock, 22:31
98. Rebecca Coady, 23:07
156. Annette Glaz, 23:53
157. Katherine Crabtree, 23:54
172. Johanna Gretschel, 24:06
193. Emmi Aguillard, 24:39
DNF. Maggie Gentry