SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The LMU women's cross country team placed 34th among 39 teams at the NCAA West Regional Championships on Friday, November 13th, at Arcade Creek Cross Country Course at Sacramento State. The West Region is well known as one of the deepest regions in the NCAA. Oregon came out on top, winning the race with 38 points. The Lions finished just six points behind UC Davis (928) with 934.

Junior Ava Boyd led the way in 105th place in 21:26.0, moving up through the field at every checkpoint of the 6K. She was 114th at the mile (5:30.7), climbed to 112th at 1.5 miles and 109th at 2.5 miles, and was 106th at 3.2 miles (18:09.8) before closing in 105th, passing nine runners from the first checkpoint to the finish. Boyd was 19th at the WCC Championships two weeks earlier.

Senior Rylee Guinn followed 23.5 seconds behind in 140th (21:49.5), improving by 20 places from her finish at last year's regional. Guinn placed 17th at the WCC Championships.
Senior Tessa Kline (230th, 23:10.3) and senior Emma Ronan (231st, 23:13.4) crossed the line within three seconds of each other. Freshman Jeevut Sajjan stepped up to score as LMU's fifth runner in 241st (23:31.9). The Lions' five scorers finished within 2:06 of each other, with a team average of 22:39.

Sophomore Collette Heil (251st, 23:52.7) also raced for LMU. Senior Ruby Tiburcio (254th, 24:11.4) took a fall on the course around the three-mile mark but got back up and persevered to the finish of the race.

"Although this is not the team result we were aiming for, I'm proud of our efforts today," said head coach Chloe Curtis.

The regional race concluded the Lions' fall season, which began with a fourth-place finish at the Mark Covert Classic and included a top-WCC-team finish at the UC Riverside Highlander Invitational, where Guinn and Boyd both moved into LMU's all-time top 15 with times of 20:39.0 and 20:56.3. LMU then placed sixth at the WCC Championships, edging Pepperdine by a single point. The Lions will look to build on the fall as they begin preparing for the spring season.