Women finish in Top 10 at NJCAA Cross Country Nationals

Women finish in Top 10 at NJCAA Cross Country Nationals

The Lansing Community College (LCC) Women's Cross Country team capped off the year with a 10th place finish at the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) National Championships in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Saturday, November 9th.  The Lady Stars were ranked as high as 11th in the country throughout the season.  Claudia Baryo finished 38th overall being named an All American by the United States Track and Field Coaches Association (USTFA) with a time of 19:48.23.  Other runners for the Stars ran very well even with the high altitude of New Mexico, Anne Lyon 66th (20:26.20), Kayla Crawford 87th (21:05.08), Deziree Shaw 91st (21:07.95), Fatuma Jillo 102nd (21:18.31) as the scoring runners for LCC with Angela Jaycox 136th (21:59.84) and Natalie Yabs 169th (22:56.41) completing out the runners.

This is coming off the Lady Stars winning their 8th straight Michigan Community College Athletic Association championship and finishing as the runner up to Cuyahoga CC at the regional meet, to which LCC finished higher then as a team at the national meet.

Next fall the championships will be hosted at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge, IA.  This will be the first year since 2000 that Cross Country will be offered at the Division II level, which LCC is a traditional Division II institution.  Of the nine (9) schools placing above LCC this season, all but one are traditional Division I institutions.